A Long Time Ago (We Used To Be Friends)
by Mikiri's Revenge
Summary: Originally Keith was supposed to have been Shiro's copilot for the Kerberos Mission. They bonded over the thought of being on a mission together. But that all fell down the drain when something was found wrong with his blood. The fall out of the mission failure changed Keith forever. x-posted on AO3 with Art!


Things to know, this is pre-Kerberos mostly. Shiro's 19, Matt's 20, Keith's 16, Pidge is 14, Lance and Hunk are 17, Dr. Holt is parent aged (I will ignore all comments about ages). Pidge is referred to as Katie since this is pre-Kerberos. Not an expert at space so most of this is based off stuff we did at Space Camp. Keith as pilot prodigyTM is in a bizarre mix of classes across all levels. I headcanon three years of classes and two main pilot groups (Fighter and Cargo). Best pilots are Fighter class so even though it's a research mission they picked pilots from fighter class.

* * *

"-I can't believe-"

"-He got nominated to do what? Has he even graduated? That's not even fair!"

"I mean I know he's a prodigy, but what?"

Keith kept his head down as he hurried to his next class. He had been able to hide in his room over the weekend right after the mission had been announced to the public. His roommates had had some idea that he had been tapped for an actual mission even as a cadet, but for a mission this important having a cadet, even as a copilot was unheard of. He had a week left of classes before he would be moving up to private training with the rest of the crew, and while he was looking forward to the difficulty jump in simulations he was not looking forward to the gossip.

"Why him? He's a cadet right? Are none of the graduates good enough?"

"How can anyone trust him with something so important?!"

"I mean Shiro's the actual pilot, he should be able to keep the kid from messing up too bad."

The insidious, disbelieving whispers followed him down the halls. When he had agreed to the mission he hadn't expected quite this amount of drama to be kicked up. His main comfort was, at least in training, he would have Shiro with him, and Shiro always had believed in him. He was about to enter his first class of the day until a hand grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around.

"Well, well, well, look who it is? Our precious little prodigy has finally slunk out of his hole to mingle with the rest of us commoners!" A boy from his third year special maneuvers class mocked, leaning down to get in Keith's face.

 _Control, control… remember fighting means no mission and no Shiro for a year. No punching assholes in the face._ Keith's face showed nothing but controlled blankness, "I wasn't aware there were regulations about where I spend my days off. And even if there were, none of them say I have to spend time with you. Now excuse me, I have class." He shoved the older teen's hand off his shoulder keeping his inner mantra of control as he slid into his seat.

The teacher came in moments later and started class as Keith daydreamed. The history class going over the beginnings of space travel and the moon race, both topics which Keith was familiar with, so instead he tried to imagine how the later crew meeting would go. He knew and trusted Shiro since the older teen had been assigned as his mentor for simulations. It was why he was picked as Shiro's copilot, the pair together had cleared every simulation including ones thought to be impossible. He didn't know the two scientists going, but Shiro had told them they were related and wouldn't judge him by his age.

He spent most of the rest of the day in a daze as it finally sunk in. _Kerberos, I'm going with Shiro all the way out to Kerberos. Past where any person has gone before. All it takes is one error and…_ Keith stopped that train of thought. _Patience yields focus, patience yields focus. First rule of flying, focusing on what you can control and not on what can go wrong._

He walked to the meeting room a few minutes early in a fit of anxiety, and paced in the hallway. A hand fell on his shoulder and gently turned him to face its owner. "Keith, you're early, that's good. Gives us extra time to introduce you to Matt and Dr. Holt before we run some simulations."

Keith blinked up at Shiro and allowed himself to be lead into the room with Commander Iverson and two others. The younger looked about Shiro's age so Keith assumed that was Matt, and that the older male was Dr. Holt. Dr. Holt and Commander Iverson seemed embroiled in a serious conversation as Matt sat at the table reading a book.

Upon noticing their entrance, Matt wandered over to Keith and Shiro and extended his hand. "Hullo, you must be Keith, our copilot. I'm Matt," he gestured over to Dr. Holt, "That's my father, Sam Holt as you might have been able to figure out, and of course you know Shiro and Commander Iverson. Are you excited? Kerberos is farther than anyone's ever gone before and think of the scientific results, we could make a breakthrough out there!"

Shiro moved so he could put a hand on Matt's shoulder as well, "Slow down there, Mr. Science Geek. No need to overwhelm him, he'll be with us for the next year and a half." Shiro gave them both a smile then walked over to where Dr. Holt was talking to Iverson to listen to their conversation.

"Man, Shiro's…. Shiro. Anyways it's nice to meet you Keith. We'll be good friends and maybe when we get back I can introduce you to my mom and sister too. My sister, Katie, she's about your age so maybe you'll be friends. She took apart the toaster once. And my mom, well my mom's great. You're an orphan right, so she'll just try to like adopt you like she did when we first started hosting Shiro before he came to Garrison. Are you prepared for the low and no gravity simulations? I think they're fun, especially the one that simulates free tumbling in space. I hope we don't have to do a lot of repairs to the ship and that they actually put it together well because I'm a scientist, not an engineer, and I focused on astrozoology, astronomy, aerospace engineering and computer science. Not that aerospace engineering actually had us doing anything with making crafts, more of how they behave in space. And I didn't major, major in all of those, computer science and astrozoology were minors. " Matt finally paused and looked at Keith who just gave him this blank stare. Matt could practically see the loading circle going as Keith digested the long series of questions and comments.

"I, uh, wait, what? You… whatever." Keith just gave up trying to answer any of Matt's questions, "When did you even have time to study all that? I barely have time to study piloting aircrafts, space crafts, maintenance, Russian and self-defense."

Matt look impressed by Keith's choice of interests. "Wow, you study all of that? They seem so different. I mean for me science classes just come easy because it all clicks and works together, that's why I took all astro-science classes for my majors, all the different parts work together even if that's not how it's taught in classes. Like the biological components taught in astrozoology prepare me for what we might find on Kerberos, the astronomy tells me about the planets and moons we're passing and what's known about them. Then computer science and aerospace engineering both have to do with me wanting to know how a spacecraft might work and how the tech is programmed. So, everything works together and that makes most of it easier to remember. And it helps that I actually graduated high school at 15, so I've been able to get a full 4 years of college to take all the classes. My sister has just about graduated too, I think she'll go into computer science and maybe engineering. Maybe next mission we go on, she can come with us as tech support? That'd be cool." Matt took a deep breath and looked like he was gearing up to continue rambling.

"Oi, you two, we're going start the mission timeline briefing. Come over here, sit down and stop pestering Keith, Matt." Shiro called, indicating that Dr. Holt and Commander Iverson were ready.

As the group sat down at the table, Iverson started up a projector showing a general timeline of the mission including pre launch, quarantine, launch, landing, and reentry. "Alright, this is the timeline. The next five months will be simulations of the mission itself, the last month preflight will be quarantine. A week by yourselves then three weeks together to make sure none of you are ill or dying during this mission. During quarantine will be when you are finally allowed on the craft itself to avoid contaminating the craft early. During the simulation time frame, the pilots will be practicing the route, entry, and landing; the scientists will be going over procedures of the included scientific instruments; and all of you lot will be doing zero-g training for the landing and any maintenance required during flight. Simple enough for you?" Iverson practically glared at Keith as he ended the speech before giving a hard stare at each of the other mission members. "Remember this mission is the future of the human race, and you lot represent the best the Garrison has to offer. Which is terrifying since three of you can't even drink! But that goes to show why we must succeed to prove that the three of you are worth the training. Dr. Holt, I'll leave the rest of this to you." And Iverson swept out of the room, the cold, rigid military feel leaving with him.

Dr. Holt waited until he was sure Iverson had left the room before he spoke, "Now that that's out of the way, Keith, Shiro," he pointed at each of them "I want each of you to call me Sam since we will be spending the next year and a half together and the Dr. Holt thing would get old fast. I will be heading the science portion of this mission and at points I may need your help with equipment like the excavator for ice samples, otherwise I want you focusing on getting us there and back safely. Matt and I can take care of the ourselves otherwise, sound good?"

Keith nodded and Shiro replied, "Sounds good. A lot of pressure but good. We work best under pressure, right Keith?"

Keith nodded again, "Right. We did mission simulation X-3957K to get out of paired piloting and that stupid show off flight mission. That was a lot of pressure."

Shiro nodded and Matt looked from one to the other, "Wait, you guys were the ones who set the record and actually beat _The Kessel Run_ simulation, and you did it to get out of _class_! I heard that simulation was next to impossible and the record holders beat it first try! That was _you!_ "

Keith was surprised Matt had even heard of the simulation, but with the amount of uproar about it around the Garrison it wasn't too surprising. He shared a glance with Shiro, who just looked proud, "Well, yeah. I mean the simulation was hard but it wasn't that hard, I'm not sure why everyone had so many problems. And where did you hear the mission's stupid nickname from?"

Matt turned to his father, "Now I'm sure we're getting the best Garrison pilots ever. That simulation is supposed to be an experiment with forced mission failure, but they succeeded and in record time! Dad this is so amazing! I heard it was nicknamed _The Kessel Run_ after those old _Star Wars_ movies with the smuggler. There's no way this mission won't be a resounding success now! I mean, I didn't think it would be anything less before, but now I'm absolutely sure we'll succeed."

Sam interrupted Matt before he got too far of track, "That is very impressive and good to know that we will be in your capable hands, Keith, Shiro. Now, according to Iverson, we have access to the zero-g simulations and flight simulators similar to our designated craft, so why don't we see how Keith and Shiro do for ourselves, okay Matt?"

"Okay! That is more than okay! Let's do that right now!" Matt leaped up grabbed Keith's hand and pulled him out the door, Shiro and Sam following behind more sedately listening as Keith yelled directions to the simulator at the overly excited Matt who kept making wrong turns. By the time Keith and Matt made it to the pilot simulator Sam and Shiro had been waiting several minutes.

Matt let Keith go in order to investigate the flight simulator close up. Keith took a deep breath and looked up at Shiro and Sam, "Is he always so, so hyperactive? I mean I have the stamina to keep up but navigating him talking is a bit… much."

Sam chuckled "Matt has always had a lot of energy and this is his first time this close to the simulator so I'm not surprised. He seems to like you Keith which is a good indicator that being in a closed, confined area for a year will go fine. If he really gets to be too much ask him for a break and he'll back off."

Matt popped his head out of the simulator's cabin and yelled "Hey Shiro! Come show me what all the buttons do!"

Shiro patted Keith's shoulder, "I've been summoned, and I'd better go supervise before he breaks something."

Sam shook his head, "Lets all go so we can start the simulation then." All three entered the simulator and Keith and Shiro started pre-flight checks and programmed the simulator for a relatively basic simulation.

The next three hours were full of increasingly difficult simulations and keeping Matt from pressing buttons and crashing the ship. Matt finally decided they needed a break after the simulation that starts you with only one engine and expects you to land safely after navigating an asteroid belt. Keith had been the main pilot for that simulation because even Shiro would admit Keith was better at maneuvering.

"Alright, alright. Lessons I have learned from this: don't press strange buttons, and even if I do Keith can normally make sure Shiro can fix it, being officially dead because I accidentally opened the airlock results in sad music, I should let Shiro finish explaining, being comms is pretty boring in deep space with no one out there, Dad can fix things faster then I can put a toaster back together, Keith and Shiro can mindmeld-" Matt took a deep breath as they disembarked before continuing, "Keith punching people hurts, and he's fast enough to do so if you make a dumb quip, Shiro is 55% of Keith's impulse control, ice in space is pretty but should not be on the window-"

"Matt, we get it, we were there too. Though that is a nice summary of lessons learned today, tomorrow we will start low-g and teamwork after Keith gets out of classes and the rest of us finish our duties." Sam interrupted his son's rambling. Keith and Shiro shared a glance as Matt kept pouting at being interrupted. "Anyways, since we trained through supper let's go see if we can beg anything from the kitchens." Sam then led the small group through the halls to the cafeteria, Matt and Shiro were conversing and both were trying to involve Keith in their discussion of Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Shiro very much supported Star Wars as the better series, Matt said Star Trek was far better, and Keith wondered why anyone cared because both series were very, very old; an opinion that both Matt and Shiro both considered blasphemy.

By the time they had reached the kitchens, most of the cooks were gone but a few remained cutting and prepping food for the next day. Harper looked up when the four entered, "Ah, if it isn't our most famous new explorers, what can I do for you boys?"

Sam stepped forward and explained, "We just finished flight simulations for the mission and were wondering if we could get some food for these three growing boys with me before we all head off to bed."

Harper had nodded along during the explanation while slowly chopping some vegetables and throwing them in a pot to cook overnight, "We can whip something up for our brave explorers no problem. Any allergies to worry about?"

Keith and Shiro shook their heads as both Matt and Sam replied "Eggplant," in unison.

Harper nodded and said "Well, that's easy enough to avoid, you boys in the mood for some fried rice? We've got some leftover rice from lunch that needs to be used up."

"That sounds delicious, I can always appreciate some fried rice. Only thing better is mac and cheese."

"You're the only one who thinks mac and cheese is good Shiro. I mean, no offense to Harper but it always tastes…. off when we eat it here. But fried rice is always good." Matt replied giving Shiro a rather bemused look for the mac and cheese comment. Keith, both used to Shiro's food oddities and willing to eat anything, just shrugged in acceptance of the offered food.

Sam stared at his collection of subordinate children amused by the banter before responding to Harper, "That sounds delicious, anything we can do to help?"

"Any of you any good with a knife and willing to finish chopping these while I whip you up that fried rice?" Harper asked considering their options.

"Keith's great with knives-" "I'm good with knives." Shiro and Keith responded simultaneously as Keith moved around the table to stand next to Harper.

"Great. Then if you could cut these in slices about the same size as those already cut, I'll go get started then. Shouldn't take longer than twenty minutes."

As Harper prepared the food and Keith chopped vegetables for the stew, Matt and Shiro restarted their debate on Star Wars vs Star Trek. This time Sam supported Matt's opinion on Star Trek while Harper took Shiro's side and said Star Wars was better. In order to escape picking a side Keith declared himself Switzerland and refused to comment about it.

Once the fried rice was done, Harper took over chopping again and shooed Keith off to go eat. About halfway through their meal Keith started dozing off slightly jerking back into awareness when either Shiro nudged him to finish eating or Matt's gesturing almost smacked him in the face. Once he finished Shiro corralled him into standing and the pair said their goodbyes. When Keith looked at a clock as they passed he saw it was almost midnight, which explained why he felt so tired. He normally got up early to work out in the gym which he would probably have to give up in order to survive the additional training and not fall asleep during classes.

Most of Keith's last week of normal classes went about the same, avoiding the older students, barely paying attention to class, working with the rest of the Kerberos crew, saying goodnight to his roommates and passing out only to repeat the cycle the next day. The Kerberos meetings were probably the most interesting thing he had going on. On the second day they had started the promised zero-g training which left Shiro laughing as both Matt and Keith got stuck upside down several times after over correcting. Sam had done this training several times before and was having better luck than any of the three younger men, Shiro was also doing well as he had done these drills before during his space flight class. Matt loved the drills but was bad at them having focused more on the sciences than his physical requirements, and as advanced as he was Keith hadn't been scheduled to start these drills with his class until after next recruitment drive, so all of his knowledge had been theoretical. The resulting mix of skills had all four laughing at the odd positions they somehow ended up in. That training had been Keith's favorite of the week since it had been so odd it had broken down many of the barriers between the four since it was hard to be scared of or unnecessarily formal with someone you've seen suspended upside down with their hair in their face and in some cases, glasses on the ground. The weeks meetings were spent alternating between the zero-g simulations and the flight simulations, which to Keith were far more interesting than history or Russian or even the lectures on advanced flight maneuvers.

As his last day of normal classes began Keith could barely focus due to nightmares the night before, but his teachers never called him on it even after he answered his history teacher in Russian when asked a question and turned in homework to his physical chemistry teacher written in his native Korean. Everyone knew this was his last day of class and that meant while his teachers were being accommodating, his classmates were being bigger jerks than normal.

"Hey Mr. Super Special, I wonder why no one's punishing you for your screw ups. You won't get away with it when you're in space. You're just a teachers pet and that's why you got picked." Keith sighed as the jerk from Special Maneuvers made an ass of himself again and grit his teeth as similar whispers could be heard around him.

"You're right, the teachers aren't calling me out but you know what, none of the screw ups I've done would matter in the mission. There's no call for physical chemistry on this mission and at least Shiro can speak Russian on some level so guess what. There's no problem, and even if there was you're not on the mission so why do you care? You have a crush or are you just jealous? Because I don't have time for this." Keith snarked, pushing past the older boy and continuing down the hall towards the cafeteria. Shiro and Matt said they would be waiting for him there to eat before training and pack his dorm up so he could move in with Shiro for the rest of their flight training.

As Keith approached he saw Matt hanging around outside the cafeteria looking around but saw no sign of Shiro. Matt spotted him and slung his arm over Keith's shoulder as soon as he was close enough. "If you're wondering where Shiro is, I'll let you in on a well known secret-" Matt opened the cafeteria doors and pulled Keith in with him, "its Garrison Mac'n'Cheese day and that means Shiro is here early and bribing Harper to get extra helpings. Don't know why he likes the stuff. It tastes pretty blah compared to mom's." Matt grabbed a tray and entered the line as Keith drifted behind him with his own tray. Matt got a little bit of all of the offerings and grabbed a soda on his way out, while Keith got one of the pre-chosen meals and some juice while following the still chattering Matt.

The pair found Shiro eating at one of the tables in the corner with a huge plate of mac'n'cheese. Keith stared at the elder boy wondering where he was gonna put all that and if Shiro was going to be sick in the simulator later. Matt just laughed at the look on Keith's face when he saw Shiro's meal. The older pair did a good job of distracting Keith from the odd hush and jealous murmurings that fell over most of the cafeteria every time he came in. Keith finally gave into his curiosity and asked Shiro, "Are you gonna be able to do the simulator after eating that much? That's a lot and the simulator can be bumpy."

Shiro looked a little embarrassed before replying "I've eaten more before hitting the sims before. It's not that much is it?"

Matt and Keith looked at each other before looking back at Shiro, "Yes, it is that much Shiro."

Shiro looked at his plate contemplatively, "I mean, I guess it could be. But don't worry, I'll be fine."

The group eventually finished their meals and put the trays in the racks to be cleaned. Shiro took the lead as they left, "Alright, Keith. Let's go get your stuff. You remembered to pack last night, right?"

Keith nodded distractedly as he stared at a group of kids and parents wandering in the hallways as they approached the residential area. Matt noticed what Keith was staring at before realizing "Oh, yeah, today's a new recruitment day isn't it?"

"No, it's a walkthrough day, they let parents and potential students come through and see what it's like here. Means we might meet some of your new classmates for when we get back." Shiro teased as the passed the group loitering around one of the other students, presumably the guide for the group. Upon reaching Keith's dorm they passed three more groups and found one standing at his own door with his roommate Aaron talking.

"-Well, everyone say hi to one of my roommates and his friends. This is Keith, he's the best pilot in my grade. Say hi to the baby freshies Keith."

Keith was a little startled by the sudden attention before squaring his shoulders and waving at the group, "Hi, I'm Keith, I'm a member of the fighter class of the pilot track, maybe when I get back you all will be in my classes."

A boy, maybe about the same age as Keith himself, with brown hair and blue eyes squinted at him and asked "When you get back?"

Keith nodded and looked at Aaron to explain, he didn't really like how the other boy was staring at him. Aaron jumped in, "Yeah, Keith here is so good he got tapped to go on an actual mission while he's still a student. He's moving today since he's going to be in special training so let's not hold him up anymore, ok? See you later Keith." Aaron then lead the group down the hall and Keith could hear him explaining the fighter pilot vs cargo pilot tracks to the group. The blue eyed boy continued to stare at Keith until his friend wearing an orange bandana got his attention.

Keith turned to look at Shiro and Matt who both looked very amused, "You never have acted that personable with anyone else the first time you met them before." Shiro mused, ruffling Keith's hair and ignoring the indignant "Hey!" of protest. "When I first met you, you were like a snarly kitten until I actually got you in the simulator."

"And with me you just kinda stared confused until I won you over with my charms. I know, I'm so great right? You were just at a loss for words the whole time!" Matt added.

Keith gave them both a dry look, "If I remember correctly, with you-" he pointed at Shiro, "I was told you were going to be my babysitter for the next year so I didn't 'accidentally' wreck something since I had such a bad record before I arrived, so of course I was irritated. And with you-" he pointed at Matt "You just would not stop talking I had no room to get a word in edgewise!"

Matt and Shiro shared a look then looked back at Keith and all three started laughing. Eventually Keith turned and unlocked his door. His bunk and desk had been cleared off of everything but his duffle bag of personal items and clothes. He reached over to grab the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He did one last glance around to make sure he had everything before saying "Alright, I'm ready to go," before looking expectantly at Shiro to lead the way.

Shiro took a second before realizing what the hold up was. "Right, let's go. Matt you lead while I get to talk more with my new roomie here." Matt grinned and took off while Keith and Shiro trailed behind, discussing basic etiquette rules for their shared room.

"So pretty simple rules, no fighting in the room, you break it you fix it, if it-"

"-grows a friend toss it in the trash-" Matt broke in from ahead.

"-That. Um, keep your mess to your room. Feel free to lock Matt out if he's being obnoxious, warn me if you want to bring friends over, if you feel sick tell me, and uh don't keep plates in your room." Shiro ticked off the rules on his hand before calling up to Matt, "Anything I'm forgetting?"

Matt thought for a second "Yeah, no sneaking out in the middle of the night without taking the other with you."

"Why?"

"That way we all get to have an adventure not just you."

Shiro sighed at Matt's explanation before giving Keith the actual reason, "Part of it is my status can protect you, the teachers never call me out for anything, but it's also so if I was up I'm not wondering where you went."

"I thought we were sharing a room but you make it sound like you have multiple rooms?"

"Yeah, I got upgraded to an apartment style dorm when I was accepted to the program. It lets Matt and Sam crash over after practice when we run late. It's why we have the 'you can lock Matt out of your room' rule." Shiro explained.

Matt stuck his tongue out at Shiro for that rule, before sighing, "But yeah that's a valid rule. Since we're gonna be stuck together for ages we need to get used to each other at a rate you feel comfortable with so if I'm making you uncomfortable tell me and I'll stop. And really, feel free to lock your door."

Keith nodded in understanding as they reached the door to Shiro's dorm. Matt suddenly got a grin on his face and blocked the door, "When I say Garrison, you say?"

Shiro gave him a blank look and said "No," in a flat voice.

"C'mon Shiro, do the thing. I won't get out of the door until you do the thing. So, when I say Garrison you say?"

"No."

"When I say Garrison, you say?"

Keith finally broke in, "What are you trying to get him to say?"

Matt sighed, "It's supposed to be when I say Garrison, you say Galaxy but Shiro here won't do it."

Shiro shrugged "It's actually supposed to be when I say Galaxy, you say Garrison but Matt insists on doing it in the wrong order. And if I start it he says Milky Way instead of Garrison so I've given up."

"But why are you doing it at all?"

Both older boys replied, "Tradition." Then Matt continued the explanation, "See when we roomed together ages ago we also had this other roommate who demanded that we use some made up password whenever we wanted to go through the door while they were around and the password was Garrison most of the time so I started the joke of, you say Garrison, I say Galaxy. But Shiro won't do it anymore after some of the others in our class started using the joke too."

"What happened to your old roommate?"

"He got bogged down in the communications track and is still in year 3 I think. He requested a room change after the first year and Shiro kept using Dad voice on him to make him do his homework."

"That sounds very Shiro, but can we go in yet? I wanna put down my bag." Keith shrugged his shoulder to jostle the duffle and remind Matt he was still carrying it.

"Hey, blame Shiro, he's the one who won't do the thing. Shiro, for Keith's sake, when I say Garrison you say?"

"Milky Way." was Shiro's snarky response. "Let us in Matt."

"Ugh. Fiiiiine." Matt whined as he moved out of the way.

Shiro finally unlocked the door and let them in. The dorm was bigger than Keith was used to, it had a small kitchen and sitting area with three other doors coming off it. One door was covered in post it notes that all had Matt's writing on them leading Keith to believe that was Shiro's room. He took a chance and opened one of the doors, revealing a bathroom. Shiro finally gave him some direction, "Ah, Keith, your room is the other unmarked door. We can decorate it some later if you'd like."

Keith went and opened the door to his room, "Nah, this is fine. I don't need anything special." As Keith went into his room to start unpacking Shiro and Matt had a whispered conversation in the kitchen area about how to decorate Keith's door.

Keith's room was about half the size of his old one, but he wasn't sharing it with three other people so the loss of space was fine. He had the typical bed, armoire, desk set up and the walls were all that same bright white that all the dorms were. He sighed and plopped his duffel on the bed, took off his uniform jacket and started unpacking his other uniforms. He didn't have much else with him after he'd been passed into federal care and he was sent to the Garrison. He only had two sets of civilian clothes, his parents knife, his red jacket, and two books so setting up the rest of his room wasn't hard. He heard Shiro knocking at the door about half an hour later as he was putting his textbooks and notebooks in the bottom drawer of his desk.

"Come in." The door opened letting Shiro inside, after the door closed again he asked, "Whats up?"

"It's almost our time slot on the simulators for the mission. You ready?"

"Yeah, let's go." Keith slid his uniform jacket back on from where he tossed it on his bed earlier.

That night's practice was full of the same ribbing and jokes Keith had learned to expect from their simulator runs. They had only ended up spaced from Matt's screwing around twice, so Keith considered it a victory. Sam had asked how Keith was settling in and let him ramble about Shiro and Matt and their strange arguments and why were all the dorms pure white. As they were finishing Keith noticed movement in the observation area.

"Hey, anyone else see that?"

"See what Keith?" Sam asked.

"I swear I saw something move on the observation deck."

"Might have been Iverson or one of the other commanders, they are supposed to check up on training." Sam replied waving off Keith's worry.

"No, I think it was one of those kids who were touring today. The hair looked the same." Keith insisted.

"Well if you're sure, you want to go check?" Shiro replied coming over to clasp a hand on Keith's shoulder.

"Yeah."

The group exited the room to go upstairs to the observation deck. The room was dark but the TV hooked to the interior cameras of the simulator was on, indicating that _someone_ had been in the room. Keith heard a bump from under one of the tables and then a voice, "Hunk, shhhhhh."

"Sorry, man."

"Shhhhh!"

Shiro walked over and knocked on the top of the table the pair were trying to hide under, "We can hear you you know."

"Aw, busted." The brown haired boy Keith had met earlier whined as he slid out from under the table. He was followed by the larger black haired boy with a bandana Keith had last seen him with.

"You two know this can get you in trouble right? Especially since you two aren't even students and this is a restricted area." Shiro informed the pair in his Dad voice as Matt would refer to it. "If anyone else found you here you would never be accepted and a black mark would be on your record if you ever tried to get hired by the force. So why were you two up here?"

The brown haired boy had been pouting during the lecture, "Well, we just wanted to see what was so special about Mullet here that's letting him go on missions meant for graduates and scientists!"

Keith got a vaguely offended look on his face before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning forward, "Who are you calling Mullet, freshie?"

The boy mirrored Keith's body language and leaned in so there was barely any space between him and Keith, "You, obviously. I mean have you seen your hair? The 80's called it wants its hairstyle back."

The larger teen, Hunk, jumped in picking up the other boy around the waist, causing the skinnier boy to flail around as Hunk turned so he could look at Keith around his friend. "Sorry about him, he's just really curious cuz you look like you're our age, not that the others look old or anything, but people our age never get to go on missions right? That's why we have classes and stuff right?" Hunk then turned his focus to his squirming friend "Lance, chill they could get us in lots of trouble. Be nice!"

Keith let out a "Hmph," and shifted to look away back towards Sam who was still standing in the doorway. He eventually sighed letting his arms come back to his sides. "I just, beat everyone else's flight scores. They want the best on the mission so it was the two people with the highest scores not already on a mission. And that was me and Shiro." He jerked his head indicating that Shiro was the one with the Dad Voice and lecturing tendencies.

"That's really cool man. You must be awesome!" Hunk exclaimed as he slowly lowered Lance back to the floor.

"I mean I guess, I just really like to fly." Keith explained in a matter of fact tone.

"He really is one of the best. He's been my copilot since he cleared all the first years sims in three weeks." Shiro explained as he ruffled Keith's hair, ignoring the glare he got. "He was assigned to me since I'm the most advanced pilot in the Garrison right now and the instructors thought he needed a challenge."

A voice came over the speakers from the simulation room, "Guys? Dad? Shiro, Keith? Where'd you go? Don't leave me here! I'd space myself in an actual mission! Don't leave me!"

Sam walked over to one of the consoles and pressed the com button, "Matt we're in the observation deck, Keith thought he saw someone and he was right."

Matt's surprised voice came back through the speaker "He was right?! Woo! Go Keith. I'll be right there." Keith could see Matt leave the Simulation room on the screen.

Matt burst into the room, "So. What'd I miss when you all abandoned me to the cold grip of imaginary space?"

Keith gestured to Hunk who still had his arms wrapped around Lance in case Lance tried to get into a fight again, "I saw a glimpse of them and we came up to check. Apparently they're here because they want to see why I'm 'special' or something." Keith did the air quotes around the word special.

Matt skipped forward and locked Keith in a headlock and messed up his hair, "Aw, baby Keith, you know you're special right? Cuz you're so awesome that even Iverson can't complain about your technical flight scores even though you'll only cooperate with Shiro."

"Matt get off!"

Matt continued on rambling still keeping Keith in a headlock. Keith knew he could get out of it if he tried but that would probably hurt Matt and that would get him in trouble so he resigned himself to Matt's enthusiastic hair ruffling. "I mean if I remember correctly you also cooperated with your previous roommates pretty well. I mean that's the point of rooming settled teams together, right? So you bond!" Matt drew out the word bond for a solid ten seconds.

"Matt, lemme go!" Keith complained as Matt started swaying while still babbling about bonds. Shiro decided it was time to intervene.

"Ok Matt. Let Keith go, we still need to decide what to do with these two." He motioned towards Lance and Hunk, who suddenly looked nervous again.

"Oh, man. Are we gonna get in trouble? I told you we shouldn't be sneaking around Lance. I'm so nervous I think I'm gonna puke."

"Whoa, buddy. Tranquilízate. If they were gonna get us in big trouble I think they would've called security on us already."

Shiro sighed "Yeah. We're not going to report you but I am going to escort you two back to where you're supposed to be. Do you know whose dorm you two are in for tonight?"

The pair exchanged a glance and then Hunk offered "Uhhh Block C room 12?"

"I thought it was Block C room 9?" Lance replied extracting himself from Hunk's arms finally.

"No, pretty sure it's room 12." Hunk replied.

Shiro sighed and put his face his palm. "Alright, alright. I'll take you two back to the C block and we'll see if your sponsors have noticed you're missing and went looking for you like they're supposed to."

Lance pointed at Keith "Can he come with us too? I want to ask him things."

Keith crossed his arms again, "Can't you ask Shiro? He's been here longer."

Lance shook his head, "No I wanna ask you, Mullet."

"My name is Keith, not Mullet. And if you're gonna be a jerk, I'm just going to go back to my dorm."

"Why? Are you chicken?" Lance taunted.

"No, I just don't want to deal with a freshie acting like a _child._ " Keith sniped back his proverbial hackles raised.

"Woah, woah, small ones. There's plenty of experience Garrison people here so let's just chill and we'll all take you back. Right, dad?" Matt broke in before the pair could start an actual fight.

"Right." Sam replied making a sweeping gesture, "Now everyone out. I need to lock up before we take them back."

The others all made sounds of confirmation as they left the room. As they waited for Sam to finish shutting things down Matt asked, "So were you impressed by our best pilots on Earth?"

Lance's face lit up eagerly "Yeah, Shiro's really impressive to watch, but I gotta ask, why do you let Keith do all the maneuvers that require getting through asteroid belts or tunnels? It seems like a waste of time to switch places during a mission."

"Well," Shiro chuckled in response to Lance's enthusiasm, "Keith is better at maneuvering in tight spaces so the few seconds we give up switching is better than crashing and failing the simulator. Not the Matt helps with his button pressing."

"Hey!"

Keith nodded, "It's true, most of our simulation fails are from Matt accidently spacing us before Shiro or I can catch it. We keep telling him to keep to comms where he's supposed to be but he just. Won't. Stop." The last few words were accompanied by a very pointed stare in Matt's direction.

"Hehehe. I'm not that bad guys? Right?" Matt laughed looking at Shiro and Keith who both were giving him a flat stare that was radiating the _I'm-not-impressed_ vibe so hard that even Lance and Hunk could feel it.

"You are literally that bad Matt. Keith and I had never failed a sim before you started pressing buttons. Sam at least does his job. You tend to make Keith cover for you since you forget to check comms when we need you too. And coms are literally your only job until we get there. It's not that hard not to press all the buttons you don't know." Shiro said exasperated.

"But how am I supposed to find out what they do if I don't push them?"

"Ask one of us. Seriously. That's all it takes. So stop wrecking our record." Keith replied in an equally aggravated voice.

"You kids ready to head back to the dorms now?" Sam asked cutting the tension as he locked the outer door.

"Wow, sir. You've got great timing. Your pilots were roasting your son." Lance said in a respectful, but obviously amused tone.

"It happens. Now let's get going before others come out this far looking for you and you get in trouble." Sam said as he herded the group down the halls back towards the residential area. Keith took the lead in an attempt to avoid interacting with Lance, but Lance never fell more than a few feet behind Keith firing questions at him relentlessly.

"How long have you been here?"

"Two years."

"And you're in the fighter class? How is it different from the cargo class?"

"Yes, no clue never been in that class."

"How did you get scouted? Cuz you had to be scouted if you're here this early."

"Personal, go away."

"C'mon, esé, it's not that hard to answer!"

"I am not your buddy Lance, stop calling me nicknames."

"Yeah Lance that's really rude. Wait to give people nicknames for at least a week." Hunk cut in.

Keith gave a pleading look at Shiro and Matt, trying to get them to intervene and get this kid off his back. Shiro and Matt looked too amused to interfere, both made shooing motions at him. "Go make friends." Shiro mouthed silently causing Keith to huff and go back to facing forward.

"Look, lobo, I'm just trying to get to know you. It would be cool if we knew someone when we got here next recruitment."

"I'm not a wolf, and if everything goes as planned I'm not even supposed to be available during next recruitment. By that point we'll be deep in group training and none of that's available to the public."

"Well you'll still be in the cafeteria and the halls right? We could still be friends!"

"Lance, you can't make people be friends with you if they don't want to. All you have to do to make friends is let it go and not leave. You grow on people like a fungus."

Lance gave Hunk a disappointed look, "Hunk, buddy, pal, friend. Don't say things like that, they'll get the wrong idea. I am a gift and joy to be friends with."

"Sorry Lance. You're a fungus. A very pretty fungus, but a fungus nonetheless."

By this point in time Matt had burst into laughter and was hanging off of Shiro as he weaved almost drunkenly down the hall. He slapped his hand against Shiro's back, "Shiro, I haven't heard," he couldn't continue he was laughing so hard for almost a minute, "I haven't heard such a great description of a friend in ages. That sounds like how we first met!"

Shiro sighed but before he could reply Keith shot back, "Weren't you the one who told me earlier if a thing grew a friend to throw it in the trash? So should we be throwing you out if you grow like a fungus. That's what the rule was wasn't it?"

Hunk and Lance both "Oooohed." and Lance said "Me~ow, shots fired, Mullet. So mean to your friends."

"Lance," Keith sighed defeated "Stop calling me Mullet."

"Well, you don't like it when I call you Mullet, or even nice nicknames and I refuse to call you by your name until you're nice to me, so sorry, Mullet. It's your own fault."

Keith just shook his head and continued down the hall. "We're almost to C block so hurry up. I want to sleep soon."

Shiro looked sheepish at that statement, "Oh yeah you've been up longer than us because you were finishing class this morning. I didn't have to report until 10 and neither did Matt. Sorry for dragging you along Keith."

Keith sighed heavily, "It's fine I'm just tired, Shiro. I was up late packing and Aaron was snoring really loud so I didn't sleep much. And I think I turned my homework in in Korean. It's just. I'm tired."

Lance looked guilty now, as did Hunk, since Keith had only come along at their insistence. "Sorry, lindo. We didn't know you were that tired." Lance apologized.

Keith waved it off, "It's fine. We're almost there. Doesn't matter anymore." True to Keith's assessment they were almost there, and as they reached the hallway containing both dorms Lance and Hunk had mentioned there was indeed people searching for the pair. Keith leaned against the wall heavily as Sam explained to the worried sponsors that they had found the pair near one of the lounges looking lost. Lance and Hunk looked properly contrite as they were lectured about leaving the dorms unaccompanied when they didn't know their way around.

"I don't know what you two were thinking going wandering. Its lucky you didn't get somewhere restricted or you would have been in trouble." The senior sponsor scolded shooing the pair into the dorm room, which Keith noted was room 12 like Hunk had thought, and turned to Sam. "Thank you for escorting them Dr. Holt. Sorry we didn't notice they went missing earlier. I hope we didn't disturb your training session."

"No, no, it's fine. The boys just wanted to explore and that's understandable. Just make sure to keep an eye on them tomorrow until they go home. No need to let them get in more trouble. Besides it gave the boys here a chance to meet some of the potential freshmen and scope out some new talent." Sam replied.

Keith dozed off leaning against the wall as they spoke. Shiro poked Sam and jerked his head at Keith, "I'm gonna take him back to the dorm, he's exhausted."

"Go ahead, I'll take Matt home for the night so he won't disturb you two bonding in the morning. And honestly, I think we can take the morning off, don't want to burn you all out before we really get started." Sam said soothingly. "I'll see you two tomorrow."

Shiro walked over to Keith and slowly convinced the sleepy younger teen to ignore his pride and accept a piggyback ride back to the dorm. The sponsor who saw them, who shared a chem class with Keith thought it was adorable how clingy the younger boy could apparently be when sleepy. Shiro himself felt something in his chest melt when he heard the sleepy mumbled of "Thanks, hyung," from Keith.

"Awwww, aren't you two cute." Matt whispered to Shiro before they split up, Matt and Sam to head home and Shiro and Keith to get back to their dorm. "He's definitely like our new baby brother. I'll have to introduce him to Pidge sometime."

Shiro glanced at him and whispered, "Does Katie know you call her that?"

"Of course!" Matt replied brightly and a little too loudly before glancing to make sure Keith was still dozing. "Sorry. But yeah of course. It's been her nickname for ages. She argues with me when I use her real name. Now take him to bed."

"Alright, alright, I'm going. Night Matt, night Sam." Shiro whispered as they parted. He made sure that Keith was settled before continuing towards their dorm. The quiet breaths in his ear were soothing in a way. It was the most relaxed Shiro had ever seen Keith. Keith always seemed so guarded and on edge, not willing to fully relax even with people he liked. But when Keith was asleep it was like all the barriers came down and Keith was finally at peace. He quietly unlocked the door and left the lights off behind him, closing the door as quietly as he could. He was glad Keith had left the door to his room open earlier as it made putting the boy to bed easier. He gently sat down on the edge of the bed and slid Keith's arms off his shoulders while the boy sat slumped over, still sleeping. Shiro gently took off Keith's shoes and uniform jacket and slid the boy under the covers. He pet Keith's hair and whispered "Night Keith," before sliding out of the room and shutting the door behind him, his last glimpse of Keith had the teen curling up on his side around his pillow. He then went about his nightly routine as quietly as he could before heading to bed himself.

Keith jolted awake in the morning. He knew this wasn't where he'd fallen asleep and the bizarre warm, floaty dreams he had were not what he was used to. He hadn't had dreams this nice since his mother died when he was six, almost ten years ago. He glanced over to the clock on the wall and sat up abruptly, it was almost 11 AM. He was late to class! He slowly slumped back into bed as he remembered he wasn't in normal classes anymore and therefore wasn't late. He allowed himself to drowse for a while as he took stock of his room trying to memorize the feel of the bed and the new space. He figured if he had to be up Shiro would have woken him up or set an alarm. He finally got out of bed when he heard someone stumbling around outside the door, flinching when his feet touched the cold tile. He looked around to find his shoes, finding them near his door where Shiro must have left them. He wiggled his toes and tried to remember the last time he's felt safe enough to not sleep in his shoes, as he thought he realized the last time he slept shoe-less would have also been before his mother died. He decided to ignore his shoes and go see what Shiro was doing as he heard the sound of something hitting the ground in the common area followed by cursing.

Keith let himself into the common area to see that Shiro had dropped a plate on his foot and was hopping up and down dangerously close to the stove. "Ah, Shiro! Watch the stove!"

Shiro whirled to look at Keith and accidentally spilled the pan of food all over the floor. Shiro looked at the now empty pan, then the eggs on the floor, then the plate he'd dropped initially and sighed. He put the pan back on the stove burner and turned off the stove.

"Stay over there while I clean this up and we can see if I can do any better once I'm done." Shiro called as he stepped carefully and deliberately around the splattered food. He poked his head into the bathroom long enough to grab a broom and dustpan before heading back into the kitchen. "The worst part of this dorm is the acute lack of closets to hold things like cleaning supplies." He grumbled as he swept the food into the dustpan, "Well that failed. Since you're awake now Keith, what do you want for breakfast?"

"Ah, um, what do you normally have for breakfast Shiro?" Keith asked trying to put off making a decision. He normally had a banana and some dry cereal he kept in his dorm for breakfast to avoid the cafeteria.

Shiro looked sheepish as he dumped the food in the trash and picked up the plate on the floor, "Normally, I have some rice, fried eggs, and some miso, and tea. But since it's your first day here I was trying to make something more. Well. American."

"Shiro, I may have been in America for the past 10 years or so but I've never really liked their breakfast. If you have the stuff, we can just have your normal breakfast?" Keith explained as he finally moved to look around the kitchen area. He'd blown past it the day before so it was his first proper look around. There was a rice cooker he noticed on the small counter space between the stove and the fridge that looked like it was on.

Shiro still looking sheepish, rubbed the back of his head with his hand "Yeah I have my normal stuff ready just in case I screwed up. Which I did."

"At least you had a backup plan and we didn't have to go to the cafeteria. I hate the cafeteria and I don't think it's open at 11 am since everyone else is either working or in class. Speaking of, why aren't we doing anything? I thought we were supposed to be working on the tech rundown of the ship today?" Keith asked as he started going through cabinets to try and find some bowls for the rice and miso.

"Leftmost cabinet for bowls. I'll get mugs and put the tea kettle on, give it a few days and Matt will get you your own mug. Mine says 'When I say Garrison you say Wildcats' he'll get you your own as soon as he finds out you like tea. Or like cocoa. Whatever. I need coffee. Or tea. Caffeine save me from mornings." Shiro explained retrieving his mug and one that read "What do you mean I don't live here?" which Keith assumed was Matt's mug, out of the cabinet over the sink. He then pulled a kettle out from under the sink and filled it with water. He placed it on the stove and went shuffling over to the table where there was a pile of packets scattered everywhere. Keith turned on the burner under the kettle and went to look as well.

On the table there were packets of every type of tea Keith had ever heard of and many he hadn't. He tried sorting through them all, but gave up and asked "Ok, do you any daechucha? I don't see any but in this mess it would be a miracle to find anything."

"It's not my fault, Matt just dumped my entire tea sorter on the table and mixed them together yesterday before we picked you up. He then never actually drank his tea." Shiro complained as he started sorting the tea into piles, "And yeah I think I have some, that's jujube tea right? Orange packet somewhere in this mess. I also have some bancha here that I already found it you want that instead."

"Nah, I found one." Keith replied fishing out an orange packet and reading it to be sure it was what he wanted. He took the packet back with him extracting the tea bag from inside it. "Is the dashi in the fridge?"

"Yeah, can you reheat it? The rice should be done in a minute. It's the big tub at the bottom with the clear lid. Dish out however much you want and put most of a bowl's worth in mine. No eggs today though, I'm not feeling dealing with a pan anymore." Shiro instructed while still organising the teas by type on the table.

Keith retrieved the container in question and dished out two about even portions into the bowls he'd left on the counter and put them in the microwave on the other side of the counter next to the stove. As the microwave was going he put the original container back in the fridge and leaned on the counter. He jumped about a foot in the air when a loud alarm went off behind him. Shiro burst out laughing at Keith's reaction and then jumped himself when the kettle whistled only a few seconds later. Keith laughed at Shiro as he turned off the kettle to let the water cool down some. Shiro abandoned the tea packets on the table as the rice cooker switched to warm and dish some out. The microwave beeped and Keith took out the warm dashi out and took it over to the table, shoving tea packets out of the way as he placed them down. He then returned to the kitchen to pour water in the two mugs for tea as Shiro took the rice over. He waited a few more minutes for the water to cool before he dumped his tea bag into the mug and brought them back to the table, he shoved more of the tea packets around ignoring a few that fell on the floor. Shiro shoving even more tea bags on the floor as he brought the garnishings for the miso soup over.

The pair sat down and went to start before Shiro realized a problem, "I forgot to grab silverware, Keith, spoon for miso and chopsticks for rice?"

"Spoon for miso and chopsticks please Shiro."

"You got it." Shiro went and pulled out a drawer and extracted the requested silverware, Keith was amused when he was handed his silverware to notice it was a plastic spoon and wooden chopsticks that probably came with take out. Shiro noticed the look and stuck his tongue out at Keith before digging in. Keith stuck his tongue out in response and then also started eating. Shiro went to take a sip out of his mug and then made a face, "I forgot to put a tea bag in this. This is just hot water. Oops."

Keith looked at the table between them and then up at Shiro, who replied to the look with a, "Yes, yes I know, there's literally all the tea you could want right here and I forgot about it. I know. Don't give me that face before I've had my caffeine, I need it to live." Shiro put a tea bag from a red packet in his tea and poked the bag in the water until it sank.

"Uh huh, sure." Keith snarked back, "Is the dashi premade? I don't think I've had any that tastes like this before."

"No, I make some for the week every Sunday afternoon- and store it in the big container. If Matt's around it can get pretty odd- since he adds things when I'm not looking, but this week's should be safe. I made extra- since I knew you were coming. Besides it's Saturday, we can make some more to your taste tomorrow." Shiro explained, his words interspersed with bites of rice and sips of miso as he waited for his tea to brew. There was a peaceful silence as the pair finished their breakfast.

There was a knock at the door as Shiro started washing the dishes in the sink. Apparently they weren't important enough to get a dishwasher but Keith wasn't sure where it would have fit even if they had one. "Hey, Keith, can you get the door while I do dishes?"

"Sure."

When Keith opened the door Matt and Sam were standing in the hall. Shrio called to him, "Who is it?"

Matt pushed his way past Keith into the dorm and Sam gave Keith a wave as he entered as well and Keith shut the door behind them. "Hey Shiro! Are you guys still getting ready?"

Shiro nodded as he washed, "Yeah we both slept in really late and then I screwed up breakfast so we had to do the backup plan."

"Ah, the old standby of rice and miso, you're such an old man Shiro." Matt replied poking Shiro in the ribs trying to distract him.

"It's traditional! Hey, stop it! Saaaaam, save me from Matt!" Shiro complained trying to move away from Matt's poking but still trying to wash dishes.

Matt poked Shiro one last time before relenting and wandering back over to Keith, "So," Matt started brightly, "how late did you sleep since you seem to be in yesterday's clothes and bed head hair."

Keith finally looked down at himself seeing that, yes he was in yesterday's uniform minus the jacket. "Uh, almost 11-ish? Hey, do you know how I got back here? I thought I fell asleep in the hallway."

"Aww, you did fall asleep in the hall. Shiro gave you a piggy back ride back here. It was so cute." Matt replied running his fingers through Keith's hair in an attempt to organise it. Keith batted the hands away when he felt Matt start to braid his hair.

Keith ran his fingers through his own hair to make sure Matt hadn't snuck any braids in, "I'm not cute, how do you know how to braid anyways?"

"Sister with long hair, and Shiro had long hair when he first came to the States too so I got to practice on both since parents are both hopeless with hair." Matt explained.

"Hey, my hair has always been short, I never needed to know." Sam replied from where he'd ended up drying and putting away dishes.

"Shiro, why'd you cut your hair?" Keith asked, Shiro avoided eye contact for several minutes instead of responding.

Eventually Matt explained, "It got gum near the top of it from a kid at school and then Katie made a mess of it when she tried to get it out, so we had to cut it all off. It's sad since it was pretty long. He and Katie would teach each other these complicated braids, and at the time Shiro's English was not the best, and it resulted in some hilarious conversations. Katie grew her hair out to match Shiro, it was so cute."

"Hey, shut up. That was back when I was 14, I can tell him equally embarrassing stories about you." Shiro pointed a suds covered finger at Matt.

"I can tell him even more, though I've told Shiro most of them. So, Keith, there was this one time when we were in the Grand Canyon on vacation when Matt was seven-" Sam started but was cut off by Matt racing over and covering his dad's mouth.

"Shhh, shhh, we don't talk about the Canyon Incident™ Dad, we don't talk about that. Katie doesn't remember that I left her on a viewing platform and forgot about her so we don't remember that either. So, shhhhhhh." Matt attempted to whisper but both Keith and Shiro heard.

"You did what?" Shiro and Keith asked in unison turning to Matt.

Matt just groaned and dropped his head into his hands, but Sam explained "He did, we had to go find a park ranger and there was this big search but she was just sleeping on a bench near the stationary binoculars. She never knew he lost her, but that was the last time we left Matt in charge of her outside the house."

"According to your wife, that's also the reason that they both ended up on child leashes once Katie could walk."

"True."

"Ugh, why are we still talking about this?" Matt whined.

"You started it." Shiro replied matter of factly.

"Nooooo, I was just telling Keith about your long hair! That's not embarrassing, not like this is! Dad, make him stop!" Matt whined finally taking his head out of his hands and draping him across Sam.

Sam chuckled and said, "Why don't Matt and I finish the dishes while you and Keith go get ready for the tech walkthrough. Since we took a half day there won't be as much detail this go round, but the craft isn't completed so it shouldn't matter too much."

Shiro rinsed off his hands, "Works for me, there's only the mugs and my bowls left anyway."

"Wait, Keith used my mug? That means we need to get Keith a mug. Hm, some serious contemplation will go into this. Expect a present in 3 days and it shall be glorious." Matt cackled as he thought about it until Sam shoved a wet bowl in his hands, "Hey!"

"Hurry up and dry it."

"You two figure out what you're doing, Keith and I are going to get dressed." Shiro replied watching the father son pair argue about who was cleaning and who was drying.

Keith slid back into his room as Shiro gave up on making sure the pair didn't break anything and retreated to his room. He shucked off his mussed shirt and pants and grabbed a new set out of the armoire, as he was getting ready to put it on there was a knock at the door. "Yeah?" Keith called back to the door as he struggled with the hanger to make it stop tangling in his pants.

The door opened a few inches and Matt poked his head in, "Dad said not to bother with uniform today- holy shit what happened to your back?"

Keith whirled around holding up the hanger with his uniform on it to protect him from Matt's inquisitive eyes. "Nothing. Haven't you ever heard of minding your own business? Go away."

Matt's eyes traveled what skin he could see, it looked like a burn on one of Keith's legs and- was that a cigarette burn on his inner wrist? Matt felt tears gather in his eyes as he moved closer to Keith leaving the door open behind him. "Keith, Keith, what happened? How…." he trailed off, trying to phrase the question he heard footsteps behind him, "Who… Who hurt you like this? Is this why you got accepted by the Garrison so early? Because you were getting hurt in foster care so they put you somewhere where you would be safe?"

Keith growled angrily, dropping the hanger and storming forward, "Look. I don't have to explain myself to you. There's nothing wrong with me." Keith's voice shook slightly and there were tears in his eyes, "I am fine. There's nothing wrong with me." Keith brushed the tears out of his eyes with the heels of his palms and just kept repeating "I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me." like a mantra.

Matt slowly, slowly reached forward and wrapped Keith in a hug, pulling his head to Matt's shoulder. He heard Shiro, who must have come in when Matt freaked out, whisper, "I knew it was bad, but I wasn't aware it was…." Shiro trailed off not sure how to describe what he was feeling.

"I'm going to call the ship techs and tell them we won't be coming today. Shiro come on, lets go make some tea." Sam said shepherding an extremely upset looking Shiro out of the room and closing the door most of the way behind them.

Keith's mantra dissolved into sobs as Matt held him quietly, Matt heard one more distinct phrase that he hadn't heard from Keith already "It's my fault umma, I'm sorry." Matt wasn't sure exactly what Keith was saying or if he was understanding it at all because Keith was also speaking in Korean and Matt didn't know any Korean. Keith's knees went out and Matt lowered them to the floor, because while Keith wasn't heavy Matt couldn't hold him like he wanted to if he was supporting Keith's weight. Matt pet Keith's hair lightly making soft soothing noises like the he used to when Katie was upset as he held Keith.

Eventually, what seemed like hours later Keith finally stopped crying and just leaned against Matt feeling worn out. Matt held him for another few minutes before pulling back to look Keith in the face, "Hey, you're fine, I'm with you, Shiro and dad are in the kitchen. No one is going to hurt you, no one is going to press you if you don't want to answer. Now would you like some tea?"

Keith hiccuped and tried to wipe his tears away again and in a small voice replied "Yeah-" he let out another hiccup, "some, biofeel please? If-" another hiccup, "If Shiro has it? Uhm, ask him for something sweet if he-" a slightly softer hiccup, "if he doesn't. Or maybe cocoa."

"You got it boss. Now, think you can get up on your bed? It'll only take a minute or two, I'll leave the door cracked if you need me. Or Shiro, or Dad. So call if you need something and I'll be right back and see if he has the tea. Can you say it again?" Matt rambled as he slowly helped Keith onto his bed and under the covers.

Keith gave him a watery smile, "It's called biofeel, it's a yohgurt drink. Shiro should know if he has some."

"You got it boss!" Matt gave him a jaunty salute before exiting the room and leaving the door cracked as promised and headed over to where Sam and Shiro were drinking out of mugs at the table. Matt sat on the table with a heavy sigh, noting the tea he'd spilled everywhere was finally cleaned up. "So, he's calmed down a lot. He wanted some tea, he called it biofeel. Do you have any Shiro?"

"Unfortunately, no. I'll get some later. Did he ask for anything else?" Shiro sighed, while Matt flopped back onto the table.

"He said cocoa would be fine if you didn't. He really. He's tired now, so if you go in stay quiet in case he falls back asleep." Matt waved his arms in the air in a I-don't-know-what-to-do manner.

"Alright, I'll get some milk warmed up. I have some cocoa on top the fridge that should be good." Shiro sighed as he stood up grabbing one of the blank mugs he had just in case Matt stayed over before Keith had a mug. He stooped to grab the milk and poured it into the mug and put the mug in the microwave to warm up. He put the milk back in the fridge and went reaching for the hot chocolate he stored on top the fridge for situations like this. He eventually found the box and extracted two packets to make sure it was extra chocolatey. When the microwave beeped and Shiro deemed it an acceptable temperature he added the packets and stirred.

"Hey Matt, you think he'd be upset if I gave it to him? I just…." Shiro trailed off "I want to make sure he's ok. He was so upset. I knew. When I was assigned Keith's mentor, I knew he had problems in foster care, but I never knew they were that bad. He never changed with me around and now I guess I know why." Shiro's voice hitched like he was going to cry too, but he shook his head and took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Hey, Shiro, he'll be fine, now that we know we can take care of him better. But seriously don't pressure him into telling you anything, that won't work. We need to show him he's safe with us and by the time the mission is over we might know the full story, but we need to let him be comfortable. You told me that ages ago, it's why the lock Matt out of the room rule is a rule remember. We planned for this so hold it together soldier!" Matt patted Shiro on the shoulder from his seat on the table before flopping back down, "Now go give Boss his drink and give him a hug. He needs more hugs. But only if he wants one."

"Thanks, I will." Shiro said, squaring his shoulder and then padding carefully into Keith's room. Sam and Matt shared a look after the door closed quietly behind him.

"I canceled our meetings saying one of the team members are ill. But, Matt, there's been a case being built against several of Keith's previous homes and this is our best shot of getting some proof. I need to know what specifically you saw." Sam said in a tired voice. He had been informed about the cases when Keith had first been assigned to the Kerberos Mission. As the Senior Mission Officer they wanted him to be aware of his subordinates and this had been a large section of Keith's file. The file had made him aware of the fact that Keith had never said what exactly had happened, nor consented to being photographed but several other fosters in those homes had told the authorities, but the prosecutors were having problems getting the charges to stick without proof and in all cases Keith had been the worst off and therefore the best proof.

Matt looked unsure, "All I really saw was a set of what looked like whip scars on his back overlapping with what looked like glass wounds. He had a cigarette burn on his inner wrist and a burn on his lower leg. There was something that looked like a knife scar across his ribs but I wasn't really looking. Dad, is this the sort of thing Katie and I would have had to deal with if something happened to you and mom? Would we have scars like Keith?" Matt sat up again on the table where he'd been lying trying to relax.

It was times like this that reminded Sam exactly how young Matt and Shiro were, Keith was small enough that he automatically had been classified as another child of Sam's family but Matt and Shiro were so good at acting mature and grown up that sometimes he forgot they were young too. Sam moved from his chair to sit next to his son and wrapped an arm around Matt's shoulders. "Unlike Keith, you and Katie have other family members so if something happened to your mom and I, you'd go with your Aunt Emily and if she couldn't take you you'd go to your Uncle Jason. And if he couldn't take you then your grandparents would, or I bet even Shiro's parents back in Japan would take you two. You two wouldn't be left to the system, at least not permanently. Especially after what we've seen with Keith. You would be alright." Sam gave Matt's shoulders a squeeze in comfort.

The pair sat in silence, Matt taking comfort in his father as they waited for Shiro to come back out of Keith's room. Shiro came out almost half an hour later with the empty mug and a more comforted expression. "He fell back asleep after he finished the cocoa. He was happy to see me though. He kept asking if his scars changed how I thought of him. I told him no."

"And that's the best we can do for him right now. He'll be fragile and lash out if he thinks we are treating him differently because we know, so we need to act as normal as possible to help him relax again." Sam stated as Shiro went to clean the mug. When Shiro finished he came over and sat on the table with the Holts and Sam wrapped an arm around Shiro as well.

"I never thought it was so bad. I knew, but it's different to see it. He was so scared we were going to leave him, or not let him come with us on the mission. He was just. So. Scared. I just held him for ages once he took his cocoa." Shiro said as if he hadn't quite processed it. He kept thinking of Keith's worn out face and they way he lit up at cocoa. Keith just seemed so much more fragile than the angry kitten Shiro had gotten to know, but at least he now knew why Keith was so emotionally distant, after all how many times had he tried to open up only to be told he was inadequate and was shipped to another home?

"We do what we can to make him comfortable and let him come to us. So, let's make something sweet for him to snack on later. Tomorrow we'll get back to training to keep him on schedule. We can do this. So, suggestions for sweets? I can head out to the store if we need ingredients." Sam supplied.

"Chocolate chip cookies?" Matt offered.

"Do we even know what type of sweets he likes? I mean we know he likes cocoa, and fruit, so can we do anything with that?" Shiro asked.

"Red velvet cupcakes?"

"I think he might like hotteok, or yakbap? I think I'll need to run for the store for that though. He seems to like korean food and that's something that Colleen taught us how to make when we first agreed to take you in Shiro." Sam explained.

Shiro looked confused and rather offended, "Why would she teach you how to make that for me? I'm from Japan, it's not the same thing."

"Mom got this really cool cookbook of sweets from Asia and we did all the easy ones before you came, and then we found out you don't like sweets much." Matt explained from the other side of Sam.

Shiro leaned around Sam to stare at Matt, "I like sweets fine, your American sweets are weird."

Matt stuck his tongue out at Shiro in response, "It's not my fault you don't like sugar. Sugar and cookies make everything better. I say we make chocolate chip cookies!"

Sam had enough of the teens arguing and ruffled both of their hair, "This is for Keith, not either of you. Let's try making hotteok first it's the easiest one I can remember and look up on my phone. How about I read off ingredients and you two see what else we need," Sam delegated, while looking up recipes on his phone.

Both teens sighed, "Fine," and jumped off the table to go looking in the cabinets. Shiro had most of the ingredients but decided it would be easier to use a pre-made mix. Sam headed out to the closest grocery store to pick up the mix as well as what Shiro requested to make dashi for the miso soup tomorrow since Sam was going out anyways.

While Sam was out Keith awoke briefly and was coaxed back into dozing when Shiro went to sit with him for a while. Matt was mixing what ingredients they had together so it would go faster when Sam came back. He was also texting ideas for coffee mugs for Keith to Katie, who just replied with a 'don't even know this guy you do it' and Matt replied with a 'he's your new brother, deal with it.'

Once Sam returned with a bag full of ingredients, the first part making of the hotteok went quickly. Waiting for the dough to rise left time for card games which eventually drew Keith out of his room after finally changing into his pajamas since everyone was determined to keep him in bed for the day. He and Shiro played war at the table as Matt narrated while Sam watched them indulgently. Eventually Matt got conscripted by his father to help fill the dough balls so they could be cooked. Matt and Shiro kept making funny faces at Keith once they got to cleaning bowls and making more cocoa. The time that actually made him laugh was when Sam jumped when the oil he was using for frying popped.

It took about ten minutes for the older group to finish making whatever it was and let it cool enough to give to Keith. Keith stared at the pancakes for a moment before reaching for one and taking a bite. Once he took a bite he knew, that for some reason they had made hotteok for him. He stuffed the whole rest of it in his mouth after the first bite, his cheeks looking like a chipmunk. Matt immediately started laughing and took a picture of it to send to Katie as a reference for her, as Matt insisted, "new brother."

Shiro reached for one of the pancakes, but laughed as Keith smacked his hand and curled his arms around the plate full of them. "Mine. I haven't had these in years. Get your own." Keith proclaimed in a muffled voice around his mouthful of pancake.

Shiro held up his hands in surrender to show he wasn't trying to take one, but Matt tried to reach for one too. Keith smacked Matt's hand too and took the plate and retreated to his room and locked the door. Matt banged on the door playfully going, "Come onnnnn, just oneeeee. I wanna try! Hey! I helped make them I deserve one!"

"Mine!"

Sam sighed playfully, "Well, if you want Keith's dessert so badly I guess you don't want cookies..." he trailed off and Matt's head snapped around to stare at his father.

"You have stuff for cookies? And you didn't tell me?!" Matt abandoned his post at Keith's door to grab his dad's shoulders. "Chocolate chip cookies?"

"Yes, yes, now get a bowl for mixing and preheat the oven. Shiro you want some too?"

Shiro made a show of thinking about it before replying, "Sure!"

Hearing that the group was distracted Keith came back out to sit at the table with his plate of hotteok. Shiro gradually drew Keith into conversation and eventually convinced him to come help put the cookies on the tray as Sam tried to stop Matt from eating all the cookie dough.

"So, Keith, do you like chocolate chip cookies?" Sam asked as they put the first tray in the oven.

"Not really. We made them a lot in my third home and it..." Keith trailed off, "It wasn't a good home. Too strict. Too many kids. And the parents were too old. So I associate them together, and I just don't like them anymore."

"Makes sense," Shiro said, "Memories affect which food we like."

"Yeah," Keith mumbled looking so sad that Shiro couldn't help himself and hugged Keith himself. Keith initially tensed but slowly relaxed. Eventually he mumbled, as the scent of the cookies started to waft through the dorm, "I want to go outside."

Shiro looked down at the younger teen in his arms, "Outside? You want to go to the roof and cloud watch or out to town and maybe get you some spare clothes."

Keith looked alarmed, "I don't have any money!"

"Keith, buddy, you're supposed to still be receiving funds for your own support as an orphan still in the control of the government." Shiro explained.

"Well, yeah but that goes toward housing and my meal plan. I don't typically have any left over." Keith fidgeted with his frayed pajama shirt.

"Well, two things happened when you accepted a position for the Kerberos mission. First, you got to move in with me which means you are no longer paying for housing as this place is part of the mission budget, your meal plan is covered as well. Second, you are also getting paid throughout training so technically, you're employed legally and so you actually have a lot of spare cash at the moment. You can afford to get new clothes now." Sam having heard the discussion and explaining to Keith what he apparently hadn't noticed in his contract as co-pilot, he then continued, "Also having now seen your wardrobe out of uniform I would have gotten you new clothes anyways, your current ones have holes."

Keith looked so shell-shocked by the idea of actually having money that Matt had to take a picture. The camera shutter noise broke him out of his stupor. "I have money? Like money to spare?"

"Yeah boss." Matt replied form his position sitting on the floor in front of the oven watching the cookies bake.

"I can...get new clothes?"

"Yeah boss. And books."

"I haven't gotten new clothes in… two families."

"Thats unfortunate. Does that mean you want to go get new clothes then?" Shiro asked.

"I- yeah. Please?"

"You two go shopping then. Shiro I'm trusting you with my car, Keith, why don't you go get some normal clothes on. Remember jackets, we may be in a desert but it is February." Sam directed. "Keith, do you still have the card to your account?"

"Yeah, I think it's in my box. I'll check when I get changed. What happens if I don't have it?" Keith asked as he stuffed his face with another hottoek as he put the plate on the table.

"Nothing really, then I'll lend Shiro my card and we'll call your bank to send you a new card." Sam said waving a hand and plopping more cookie dough to go in the oven.

"Wait, what?" Keith paused staring at Sam from his doorway.

"Keith you're a good kid, you deserve new things. If you didn't have your card, I'd pay for your shopping trip because you need it. I do it for all of my other children, including Shiro here, so it wouldn't be a problem." Shiro grinned sheepishly at Sam including him as one of his children in his statement.

"But-"

"Keith go change. I promise, whether you have your card or not, it will be fine." Sam assured waving Keith into his room to change into normal clothes.

Keith emerged from his room about five minutes later his wallet in hand, sliding the chain to his wallet on his belt and buckling it. He grabbed another hottoek as he passed the table over to Shiro. "I found my card. I'm ready to go if you are?" Keith said then stuffed the hottoek in his mouth. Matt snapped another photo of Keith acting like a chipmunk and sent it to Katie.

Shiro smiled, "I'm ready if you are. We'll be back in a bit, have fun with the cookies."

"Bye, Shiro, Keith."

"I will have fun with the cookies."

Shiro and Keith headed out of the dorm and checked out as they headed to the parking area. "How are we getting to town?"

"Sam lent me his keys so we'll take his car. It's over there, let's go." Shiro pointed to a car in the middle of the lot. Shiro and Keith got in and buckled themselves in before heading to the gate to get out of the compound. It was a fifteen minute drive to town where Shiro parked in front of the mall.

"Where do you want to fit up first?" Shiro asked Keith as they entered the mall.

"I don't know, I've never been to a mall before." Keith replied looking around curiously.

"That's pretty sad. Do you want to start with like shirts or pants or what?" Shiro gave Keith simpler choices.

"Let's start with shirts because this one is fraying pretty bad." Keith replied fiddling with the edge of his shirt showing Shiro the frayed edges.

"Alright, shirts it is. Let's get you some basic ones first and maybe some amusing ones later." Shiro agreed leading Keith into a nearby store. It took a while to find some plain shirts that fit Keith's frame in a variety of colors. Shiro had noted early on that Keith tended to go for either dark colors or red to match his jacket and tried to help him find more. They eventually moved on to finding Keith new pants which all ended up all being black. Shiro left Keith alone long enough to find more under clothes and pajamas, and dumped them in the cart as well. Shiro stared down at Keith's shoes, which looked as frayed as anything else and led Keith to checkout so they could go to a shoe store and get him new shoes.

Keith fidgeted as they stood in line playing with the chain connected to his wallet. Shiro could only watch him for so long before he pulled Keith in with an arm over his shoulder. Keith glanced up, worry in his eyes, and Shiro felt something in him break a little about how nervous Keith was about getting clothes. "Hey, you'll be fine. If you run short on money on your card Sam gave me his, and you need the new clothes. I'll leave the fun shirts up to Matt, he likes to buy them for people."

"You keep saying fun shirts but I don't know what you mean." Keith replied looking up at Shiro.

"You know how Matt got the mugs in the dorm?"

"Yeah."

"There're shirts like that that people like to wear. Did none of your old housemates have them?" Shiro asked curiously.

"No. When we get moved we only really are allowed to take whatever we can fit in a backpack or trash bag. That sort of thing gets lost after a few homes." Keith explained looking away.

"That sucks, but it does mean Matt can have a ball with his paycheck. Which he will." Shiro replied patting Keith on the shoulder with the arm he had wrapped around him.

"Why does Matt like these things so much?"

"I dunno buddy. He takes a great deal of pleasure in using them though. I'm pretty sure it's a thing that he does with his sister. They were pretty crazy about it when I was living with them. Anyways, the line is moving so let's get your stuff on the belt." Shiro replied as he started moving the clothes to the conveyor belt to be scanned. Keith fidgeted next to him with his wallet as the price racked up higher and higher.

"That'll be $110.83, credit or debit?" the cashier asked barely paying attention.

"Credit, right Keith?" Shiro replied after Keith froze at the price.

"Y-yeah." Keith took the card out of the wallet and swiped it, cringing like he expected it to attack, after a moment the screen flashed 'accepted' at him and the cashier handed him the bags of clothes.

After Keith payed Shiro put a pair of gloves down on the conveyor belt and paid for them; as they left Shiro dumped the gloves in one of Keith's bags and grabbed it, "Now to get you some shoes, you need a pair of uniform boots, I saw the ones you normally wear they're second hand right, but they're falling apart and that could hurt you during drills. Then you need a pair of sneakers and whatever else you want." Shiro led the way down the mall to a shoe store, Keith trailing behind him awkwardly.

"Shiro, that'll cost way too much. I don't need all of that! And what was with those gloves?" Keith protested.

Shiro looked at Keith his phone in hand texting someone. "Keith, it's fine. Sam said he'll take care of the cost for your shoes. He wants to help. And they were to protect your hands while we work out, they weren't expensive, don't worry."

Keith looked so distressed that Shiro pulled him to the side near an access tunnel. "Look, I know you're not used to people spending money on you, but you need this. If your clothes and shoes were any worse there would be no way for you to pass inspections. So let us take care of you ok?"

"Fine." Keith replied sullenly.

"Good!" Shiro exclaimed as they finally reached the shoe store. "Now let's see, we'll get the boots first since we need the regulation ones and then we can go exploring." Shiro led him to the back corner of the store, grabbing a metal sizer as he went along to where the store has deliberately stocked Garrison regulation boots due to the closeness of the Garrison to the shop.

"Alright now, let's size you and get started." Shiro said. Keith just sat on the bench and let Shiro do whatever he wanted since Shiro knew more about buying shoes than Keith did. Eventually Shiro had Keith try on a pair of boots and then walk around with them on.

"How does that feel?"

"Uh, very slide-y. I think I can walk out of them if I try." Keith replied making an uncomfortable face. He walked back to Shiro and then deliberately walked out of the boots.

"Ok, too big. So were they too big everywhere or just on the sides?" Shiro asked staring at the boxes of boots.

"Everywhere." Keith replied. Shiro handed him a new box with boots to try on and then sent Keith wandering the store again.

"How about these?"

"Too small. My feet hurt." Keith replied as he sat down and took the boots off.

"Ok, so let's try the first size in narrow." Shiro replied moving boxes on the shelves, then muttering to himself, "Why do they only have the wide boots out, I know they have narrows." He turned to Keith, "Give me a minute to ask one of the sales people if they have any narrows in stock, why don't you see if you can find any other shoes you want."

Keith ended up wandering around the store in his socks as Shiro and the sales person talked. Eventually he found a pair of boots that were black and white with red accents. He grabbed a box with them and went back to wandering, figuring he'd try them on when Shiro was done. He then found a set of black tennis shoes that looked comfortable enough and grabbed that box too. He wandered back to where the Garrison boots were and decided to try the boots he had grabbed on. A lap around the store told him these boots fit way better than the Garrison ones. He took them off and tried the tennis shoes on instead. He took about three steps in them before he sat back down and took them off. He put the tennis shoes back and found a few different ones to try on instead and repeated the process of trying them on until he found a pair of red and black ones that he liked. Finally Shiro came back with several boxes of what were presumably Garrison boots for him to try on.

"Oh, good you found some new shoes. Well back to the annoying regulation ones. Here, try these first." Shiro handed Keith a box, Keith upon opening it just handed it back to Shiro. "What's wrong with them?"

"Shiro. Did you even look at them? They're tiny. Like kid sized tiny." Keith opened the box again to show Shiro.

"Oh. Huh. Try these instead." Shiro handed him a different box.

"Fine."

It took most of the stack of boots Shiro had brought but they finally found a pair that fit. Shiro sighed as they gathered the boxes of the shoes that Keith wanted and put the rest back. "Well that was an experience but now you've got shoes. Want to get some food at the food court?"

Keith looked up from where he was stacking the boxes of the denied Garrison boots. "I guess? Do they have anything good?"

"That depends on what you call good, but it is fast. Its also part of your first real trip to the mall experience, so let's pay for these and head up there. Food court's on the second level." Shiro replied walking up to the checkout counter and putting the three boxes there. The checkout was smooth and Shiro refused to give Keith either of the bags containing his shoes. They left and went up to the food court. The sudden increase in noise, motion, and smells had Keith stumbling and confused. Looking around there were fast food version of so many places, asian food, italian food, taco places, burger places.

"How…. do you even know where to start?" Keith asked overwhelmed.

"Well, first I like to do a walk around to see what looks good and what looks the least greasy typically. So we start at this end and loop around. Then we decide what we want. Now, there are two ways to eat food court style, first is finding one meal at one place you like and getting that. Second is getting something interesting from anywhere that looks good, leaving you with bits and pieces from multiple places. The first is easier and faster, but the second is more fun and tastes better." Shiro said leading Keith around the food court, stopping to read the menu and look at the food a short distance from each place.

Once they completed their lap around the food court, being stopped multiple times for samples Shiro finally asked, "So, what looked interesting?"

"Uh, uh..." Keith looked at the restaurants more, trying to decide. "...The pizza place?"

"Always a good choice, let's get that." Shiro agreed, wandering to the pizza place by the entrance they came in. He got two slices of spinach pizza and told Keith to order. Keith nervously got a slice of pepperoni and some breadsticks. When they came to the cashier, Shiro ignored Keith's attempts to pay and paid for the food and two drinks. Keith pouted the whole way to the table they found at the edge of the food court.

"Keith, c'mon. I used my own money. If it really bothers you, you can pay me back by doing dishes for the next week. It's really not an issue. Keith, buddy, stop ignoring me." Shiro pleaded as he opened the box to one of his pizza slices and started eating.

Keith stuck his nose in the air indicating he was ignoring Shiro and dug into his own food. He took a small bite of pizza cautiously, chewed thoughtfully and then brightened significantly and tore into the pizza. Shiro watched him bemused, "You act like you've never had pizza."

Keith between bites explained, "I've never- had any- that tasted this good." He took a breath and continued once he'd had half the pizza, "Garrison's isn't this good and I've only had rotten pizza before the Garrison."

Shiro looked shocked by the off handed reference to Keith's previous life, but knew better than to press on it in this type of setting. "If you think this is good, wait until you try Mrs. Holt's pizza. Its delicious."

Keith just nodded and took a bite of one of the breadsticks then finished the whole thing in less than a minute. Shiro had a bemused smile on his face as he watched Keith stuff his face with a look of wonder. "Remember to breath hot shot. And maybe savor the taste some more. Remember we can come back here too."

"Really?" Keith asked around a bite of breadstick.

"Of course. It's only a 15 minute drive. Sam wouldn't mind taking you if the rest of us are busy. He'd love a break from grading first year engineering papers." Shiro replied finishing his first slice of pizza.

"He's still teaching?" Keith asked finishing a breadstick and going back to his pizza.

"Just one class. But yeah, until the next group arrives." Shiro replied chewing on the crust of the piece of pizza.

"That sucks. What types of papers do engineering first years even have to write?" Keith asked.

"He has great stories about it. And the submitted unfinished final drafts, he's got a file full of them."

"Unfinished final drafts? Like what?"

"Liiiike, leaving 19-whatever instead of the date, or insert citations here instead of actual citations. Stuff like that." Shiro waved a hand and took a sip of his drink.

"People do that?" Keith replied finishing his pizza.

"Apparently, it's so they can stay in the writing zone and fill in the details later. Matt does it all the time for his papers. Half the folder Sam has is Matt's screw ups."

"But Matt's physical science, not engineering?" Keith asked drinking some of his drink.

"Remember how Matt also did aerospace engineering? Sam teaches statics and dynamics. Its one of the first classes Matt had to take. Matt was one of his worst students when it came to papers." Shiro laughed, "It was hilarious during dinner, Sam would ask Matt how the paper was going and he'd get so distracted. Matt like would get super flustered and forget to do the papers then sneak them in as Sam was grading. He got caught so often by Katie, it was great."

"I can't believe he was that bad at keeping up with assignments while living with his professor." Keith replied going back to finish his breadsticks.

"It's Matt, what do you expect? You've spent a week in close quarters with him. He's always like this." Shiro said sitting back in his seat. The pair finished their food and took their drinks and Keith's clothes and got ready to leave. Shiro turned to Keith, "Need anything else?"

"No, I think that's everything. I'm ready to be back in the dorm, this is a little too much people interaction for me anymore." Keith replied shifting his bags to hold them better.

"Right, then let's head back to base then." Shiro replied leading the way out of the mall. The ride back to the base was quiet with music playing over the radio softly, Keith relaxed into the passenger seat. The gate guard waved them through into the parking area. Checking back into the Garrison was simple, though they were reminded about curfew.

Their return to the dorm was met with a loud clang reminiscent of how breakfast started, and sure enough, there was a pan on the floor and food everywhere. Matt, standing next to the stove, smiled like he hadn't made a mess of the dorm again. Sam sighed exasperated from the sink where he was washing dishes. Sam turned to Keith and Shiro and gestured to Matt, "This is why he's not allowed to cook at home."

Shiro frowned placing the bags of clothes on the table, "Then why can he here? I don't want to deal with this either."

"That's true."

"Hey! I'm not that bad, I can cook just fine. You guys startled me. I haven't set the house on fire….yet. Means I'm doing better than Katie." Matt replied, acting very offended.

"Katie was six and wanted to take the stove apart. She also really just wanted to make peanut butter cookies and thought you could make them in a pan. Without mixing the ingredients first." Sam replied, "You have none of those excuses. You're not six."

Matt haughtily picked up the pan in one hand and bit his free thumb, "I'm six and a half and I bite my thumb at you sir. I am offended by your accusations. I am six-" he took his thumb out of his mouth, "and a half. That is why I cannot cook."

"Can I tell Katie you said that?" Shiro asked getting out his phone and starting to text someone, presumably Katie.

"Hey, Shiro! Hey-"

Keith grabbed the bags off the table and retreated to his room closing the door to cut off any attempts to involve him in the nonsense. He put his bags on his bed and started taking them out, removing the tags, and putting them in his armoire. When he finished he stared at the full hangers and drawers uncomprehendingly, he hadn't been able to fill a drawer with clothes in years due to the repeated moves in foster care, and later in his time on the streets.

He sat on the floor for a bit afterwards, not willing to deal with the rest of the Kerberos crew just yet but not wanting to get into bed either. He remembered the boxes of shoes still on his bed and scrambled to put them away, he put his new Garrison boots next to his old pair and could see the difference plainly. The new boots actually looked like they would be the right height and lacked the scuff marks that lingered on the old set no matter how much he polished them. His other new boots looked so pristine he was almost afraid to touch them and make them dirty. He put his new sneakers away and looked around his room again. It now looked slightly more lived in with the discarded bags and boxes scattered about and he flopped on his bed happy with the feeling of the room now, the sterility now lessened to a tolerable point.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying on his bed before he heard a knock and a voice calling to him, "Hey, Keith?"

It was Shiro so he responded, "Yeah?"

"Matt and Sam are going to head out for the night, then we could play some more card games if you want?"

Keith levered himself up and then off his bed, "Yeah, sounds great. What type of cards?"

"We could play go fish? Or more war? Or speed? Or I could fish out the chessboard and we could do that?" Shiro offered from the other side of the door.

Keith opened the door, "Lets play war some more, if we don't finish it we can continue it tomorrow."

Shiro smiled at him, "Sounds good."

Keith and Shiro said their goodbyes to Sam and Matt, Matt reminding Keith of his promise to get him a mug and ruffled Keith's hair on his way out. Keith and Shiro then sat at opposite ends of the table, after Keith had warmed up the last of the hottoek to snack on while they played cards. The game of war went on for almost two hours before Shiro called it to a temporary halt for the night. They kept the decks separate with sticky notes on them to identify which stack was whose and went to get ready for bed. Keith enjoyed a shower that had unlimited hot water and privacy before telling Shiro goodnight.

"We'll be getting up earlier tomorrow to make up for skipping today but it shouldn't be an issue. Make sure to sleep soon." Shiro informed Keith tugging lightly on his wet fringe.

"Got it."

Keith got into bed and stared at the ceiling while he contemplated everything that had happened. He was wearing pajamas, actual pajamas, for the first time in almost three years. He had new clothes and shoes that had never been worn by anyone else, so they were solely his, which hadn't happened since his second foster home when he was eight. And most terrifyingly was that they knew about his scars. They knew, and he knew that they wanted to know about them, but he wasn't ready. But, they had respected that. They hadn't pressed the issue. They made sure he felt safe, and wanted and it felt so, so strange when he thought about it. He was wanted for the first time in years and it was strange.

Keith awoke the next morning to Shiro knocking, telling him to get ready. As he did, Shiro explained they'd be doing the tech walkthrough during the morning and obstacle courses in the afternoon. They ate the last of the miso in the fridge with more rice and tea for breakfast before heading down to the ship dock to meet up with Sam and Matt.

The tech walkthrough was as boring as Keith expected it to be. It was important, sure, and the specs were nice to know, but half the shuttle was incomprehensible to him since it was equipment for the two scientists to use on samples they picked up. Shiro made a big deal of pointing out buttons Matt was not allowed to press during the walkthrough of the test prototype to the amusement of the engineers working on the craft. Keith asked several of the engineers about the steering system and the likely breakable parts he would focus on learning to fix in an emergency while Sam and Matt were getting the rundown on their specific equipment. One of the younger engineers sat down and showed him the emergency procedures that he would be able to do from his station if something broke. Keith and the tech went through them several times until they were both sure Keith would remember most of it until the next walkthrough in a month.

Lunch was unremarkable except for Matt stealing half of Shiro's plate and making Shiro go back for more. When Shiro looked away to defend his new plate from Matt, Keith stole his pudding. Shiro pouted for the rest of lunch instead of trying to get it back. Sam watched them all with the bemused parent smile, and only Keith saw him steal several of Matt's fries.

The obstacle course after lunch was brutal. Keith was used to exercise, he had been in self-defence classes for his entire time at the Garrison, but even Shiro was tired by the end. The course itself wasn't hard but the sheer number of repetitions over it made Sam complain about his joints, Matt to flop on the floor and seemingly fall asleep, Keith to attach himself to his water bottle while stretching, and Shiro to be panting and leaning on Sam. Iverson, the person in charge of the course just smirked and dismissed them.

It took some effort to drag Matt up and get him back to the dorm, "If I ever see that obstacle course again, it will be too soon."

"I agree, but Matt, I cannot drag you all the way back to the dorm. I don't have the energy after that either." Shiro replied trying to make Matt walk to preserve his own energy.

Keith burst into a jog as they reached the residential area calling over his shoulder, "First one back gets first dibs on the shower!"

"Hey! No fair! You got a head start!" Was the last thing Keith heard before he sprinted back to the dorm. He got there far before anyone else, which meant he got to fiddle with the lock. He opened the door, sprinted to his room to grab clothes and locked himself into the bathroom. He heard the other three stumble into the main room as he started the water for a shower.

Keith could hear them grumbling before Shiro knocked on the bathroom door, "Fine, you win. Just no hour long showers this time? The rest of us would like to be clean too."

"You got it Shiro, I'll be in and out in fifteen minutes. I promise."

As Keith promised he emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later. He came out into the common room and watched a scuffle between Matt and Shiro over who got to go next. In the end Sam went next since he snuck into the bathroom while the two other teens were arguing. Keith toweled his hair dry while Matt and Shiro did rock, paper, scissors to determine who showered next. It took nine rounds before Shiro was declared the winner and Matt sulked.

"I'm going to make tea, anyone want some?" Keith offered finding the kettle and filling it with water and placing it on the stove to boil.

"By the time it's ready I'll be in the shower so I'll pass."

"Sure, boss! Pick a type of tea for me?" Matt replied bouncing over from where he had been sulking.

"Sweet or bitter?"

"Uh, sweet. I need something sweet after that obstacle course. I deserve sweets."

"How about the oolong tea? I think Shiro has some of the sweetened type." Keith offered after thinking for a moment.

"If you think I'll like it, I'll drink it, boss." Matt replied draping himself over Keith and resting his chin on Keith's shoulder.

"If you don't think it's sweet enough we can add honey. I saw a jar of it earlier." Keith batted at Matt trying to get him off, "You're heavy. Get off!"

Matt pulled back looking offended, "Shiro did you hear that! Boss called me fat!"

Shiro waved a hand dismissively from where he was sitting at the table, "Where's the lie?"

Matt gasped dramatically, placing the back of his hand to his forehead and the other on his chest, "Such betrayal, from my own best friend! I never saw it coming. Oh stars, come and take me to where I cannot feel such pain for this betrayal. It was a shot unseen and unexpected. I shall never trust my former friends again. Oh woe is me-"

Shiro let his head fall back in order to stare at Matt while Keith just did a uh huh, sure, head nod while turning away from the scene. Shiro finally interrupted Matt, "You're such a drama queen. But that won't let you shower first. Also, your heart is on the other side of your body and you know that."

Matt snapped his fingers disappointedly, "Damn you Shiro, for seeing through my sneaky plan! I'll get you next time!"

The kettle whistled and Keith grabbed the mugs, Keith claiming Shiro's since he wouldn't be using it and Matt snickering at his own. Matt snapped again this time with more feeling, "Right, your mug will be done for tomorrow and it shall be great. Katie's picking it up for me."

Keith gave Matt a skeptical look, "I look forward to seeing what you think fits me on a mug tomorrow then. I'm sure it'll be interesting."

Matt grinned as Keith filled the mugs with water, waiting to add the tea infuser until the water cooled, playing with the tea infusers as he waited, "Indeed it will, I think it fits very well boss."

Keith decided ignoring Matt was probably better for his sanity and turned back to Shiro, "You want to play War more after you shower? I think I'll win today."

"I'll win today but sure. Or if Matt and Sam want to play cards with us we can play war tomorrow and play something else today, like BS." Shiro replied still moving slowly like a zombie as he turned to look at Keith. Keith decided the water was close enough and added the infusers to the mugs.

"Do you have another deck of cards? I want to keep our War decks until we finish the game."

"Yeah, I'll get them after I shower." Shiro replied before thunking his head back onto the table.

Matt bounced around with energy no one thought he had, including him, "Is the tea done yet?"

"It's been like a minute, no Matt the tea isn't done steeping. How do you have this much energy after you were dragging so badly in the hallway?"

"If I stop moving, I think I'll fall asleep right now, so I'm gonna keep bouncing." Matt replied taking his mug over to the table, putting it down and then playing with Shiro's hair. "Your hair goes fluffy, fluffy, fluff." Matt mumbled as he pulled sections of Shiro's hair so they would be pointing straight up if Shiro was upright.

At about 4 minutes Keith pulled the tea bag out of his cup and took a sip. He hummed thoughtfully and went to get the honey out of the cabinet, he grabbed two spoons figuring Matt would want honey as well and made his way over to the table. Keith put a small dollop of honey in his cup and stirred handing Matt the honey jar. Matt repeated Keith's actions but added significantly more honey to his tea.

"Why make tea at all if you're going to add that much honey?"

"Honey water is crappy. I've tried. Needs some base flavor first. Tea is the base flavor." Matt replied his eyes not quite in focus as he drank his tea.

"I don't get it either, it's a Matt thing." Shiro said voice muffled by the table. "It's why he made a mess of my tea the other day."

"Oh. Ok." Keith replied drinking more of his tea. There was an exhausted silence until Sam came out of the bathroom looking refreshed.

Shiro floppily drew himself up grabbing his pajamas off the chair next to him and wandered into the bathroom, holding himself tilted almost. Keith and Matt watched him go, heads tilting in unison, matching the angle Shiro was walking at. Shiro almost walked into the doorway before pausing, righting himself fractionally and getting into the bathroom. The door shut behind him slowly.

Keith stared at the closed door hands wrapped around his cup of tea, "Is-is he ok?"

Matt sighed and bounced in place as he drank his tea, "Yeah he'll be _fine_. Sleepy Shiro's just a little… Off."

As if to contradict Matt a crash came from the bathroom. Sam sighed and knocked on the door, "Shiro are you ok?"

There was silence for a minute before the water started and Shiro replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. Peachy. It was just a shampoo bottle."

Matt downed the rest of his tea before fidgeting his way back over to Keith. Keith gave Matt an assesing stare, but stayed still as Matt started braiding his damp hair. Keith turned to give Sam a helpless stare. Sam shrugged, "We're all tired so we're likely to stay here tonight. I'll take the inflatable mattress from Shiro's room and Shiro and Matt will share Shiro's bed. Untangling them in the morning will be the fun part."

Matt nodded, fingers still threaded in Keith's hair, "Shiro's a cuddler, and I flop. Makes for a fun pile of limbs in the morning. Yup, yup, yup." Matt trailed off into a yawn. Matt leaned heavily on Keith mumbling incoherently before speaking clearly again, "Shiro better hurry up or I'll sleep without showering and he'll whine in the morning."

Keith finished off his tea, trying to wrap his head around the idea of Shiro whining. It just, didn't seem right. Sam patted Keith's shoulder and went into Shiro's room while Matt started braiding progressively tinier sections of his hair until some of the braids were tinier than his pinky. Matt then started braiding the braids together, whining about Shiro the entire time.

Shiro emerged from the bathroom, steam trailing from the door and waved sleepily at Keith before heading into his room. Keith heard a squeaky whump and assumed Shiro had just fallen on his bed. Sam laughed as he emerged from Shiro's room and paused briefly to steer Matt into the bathroom. Matt had been drifting towards the door but had been headed more in the direction of Shiro's room than the actual bathroom door. Keith watched Sam start to set up the inflatable mattress before Sam shooed him off, "I don't need a babysitter, go to sleep you're about to fall over."

Keith was going to protest but then sighed, waved goodnight and headed to his own room. He flopped on his own bed, slowly curling around his pillow, ignoring the strange feeling of still not wearing his shoes. The darkness of exhaustion swept him under before it became more than a passing thought.

Keith awoke to the sound of someone knocking on a door far away, he waited a few moments for someone else to answer the door but no one else seemed to have woken up. Keith sighed and sleepily rolled out of bed, feet scrunching on the cold tile for a second while he got his bearings. Keith fuzzily made his way out of his room, carefully avoiding where Sam had set up the inflatable mattress, and opened the door to the hall. Keith stared blankly at the grouchy girl with long hair that reminded him of Matt who had her hand raised like she was going to knock again.

The girl stared back at him with a similar sleepy expression, "You must be Keith. Here, have a mug." She shoved a mug wrapped in brown paper into his hands and breezed past him into the room before Keith could formulate a response.

Keith stared at the wrapped mug, and then the back of the girl who was heading into Shiro's room. He decided this was too much brainwork while he was still sleepy, so he closed the hall door and went back to his room. Keith put the mug on his desk and wandered back over to his bed. As Keith flopped back on his bed and pulled his covers back up he could hear similar rustling from Shiro's room. Keith idly wondered how they could fit three people on a twin sized bed as he fell back asleep.

Keith jerked awake when he heard a muffled thump from Shiro's room. It was a little distorted, but he could hear the voices, specifically Shiro's, "Why is Katie here? How is Katie here? I'm too tired for this."

There were some shuffling noises and then a squawk and Matt's sleepy statement, "Just accept it, Shiro. Do not question the sister."

"Shut up I'm trying to sleep." the only female voice responded.

"Okay, Katie." Matt and Shiro replied in unison before the noise dwindled off to nothing again.

Keith dozed in his bed for a few more minutes before remembering the strange events that led to a girl in their dorm. He reluctantly climbed out of bed, scrunching up his toes at the cold floor, and wandered over to his desk. He unwrapped the mug and stared blankly at it, of course Matt would get Keith a mug that read Starfleet Captain in Training. Keith could hear what he figured was Sam starting to move around in the common area, and figured it was safe enough to go check and see what they had for breakfast, or if he was going to the cafeteria today.

Sam had finally woken up and was poking around in the cabinets for supplies for breakfast. He looked over when Keith entered the room smiled, and waved him over. "Keith do you want to help me make pancakes for everyone?"

Keith stared blinking at the adult before seeming to realize he'd been asked a question, "Oh, what? Pancakes, sure, yeah. I can help. How can I help?"

Sam smiled gently, "Yes, pancakes. How about you mix the dry ingredients I dumped in the bowl while I handle the wet ingredients, and then I'll add mine to your bowl and you can stir while I set up the pan to cook them in, sound good?"

Keith nodded seriously, "Sounds good." Keith took the whisk and started working on mixing, while Sam cracked a couple eggs, added some milk to the bowl and stirred vigorously. He had Keith stop stirring for a few seconds to add the mixture and some melted butter and then had Keith go back to mixing. Sam fished out one of the pans out of where Shiro had them stashed them and put it on the stove, then put some oil in the pan and wandered over to check on Keith.

"Mixing going ok?"

Keith nodded, tongue sticking out slightly as he focused, "Yeah. I got rid of most the lumps but I'm still finding some."

Sam smiled, "Alright, tell me when you're ready and I'll get down to cooking. I'm going to go check on Shiro and Matt."

"Alright. Oh, wait, Sam! A girl came in this morning and went in there." Keith told Sam, confusion coloring his tone.

"Oh, Colleen must have dropped off Katie on her way to work. Thank you for letting her in Keith." Sam watched as Keith shrunk into himself some, embarrassed at being thanked, before heading over to Shiro's room and opening the door. Sam stared at the pile of limbs and blankets on the bed and sighed. The sight of all three of his children, biologically related or not, cuddling together on that small bed reminded him of when Shiro first became part of the Holt household and had been homesick.

He let himself enjoy the sight for a few seconds more before clapping a few times and coming over to the bed and poking various limbs until he started to get a reaction which was pretty much grumbling and a multi-person whine of "Daaaaaaad."

"Well, it was a good thing I had a helper in the kitchen this morning, I'm starting pancakes and I'm willing to hide them from you all if you don't get moving. Anyone not in the kitchen by the time I'm done gets to eat in the cafeteria." Sam taunted, ignoring the burst of happiness from Shiro calling him dad like the other two.

The whining followed Sam out of the room as the three tried to untangle from each other. He heard a loud thud and Matt grumbling "Of course, I'm the one who falls out of the bed, I'm always the one that falls out of the bed. Never Katie, oh no, could never be so rude as to force a lady out of bed. And noooo, never Shiro either, because how could you be so rude to the poor international student. Must be time to dump poor Matt on the floor. Ouch!"

One of the others must have smacked Matt as they got out of bed, Sam surmised. When he reached the kitchen Keith was leaning on the counter, his Garrison issued tablet in hand as he searched the internet. Sam grabbed the bowl containing the pancake mix giving it one last stir to check the consistency. Keith had started when Sam had grabbed the bowl but had relaxed back into the counter after seeing it was just Sam. He then turned on the stove on and waited for the pan to heat. "So what are you looking up Keith?"

"I was checking my bank account and looking at phones. My old one broke a while before I got to the Garrison and I haven't needed to replace it until now." Keith continued flicking through pages on his tablet looking vaguely frustrated as he researched.

"Tell me when you decide, and I'll take you to the store so you can get one and I can help you get set up on a phone plan." Sam offered dumping some of the batter into the pan into a hand sized pancake.

Keith groaned, "I forgot about those. Why do those still exist."

"Because people need different things and as long as phones exist, so will data plans. Businesses aren't willing to give up that stream of revenue yet." Sam started working the spatula around the edges of the pancake. "Can you grab me a plate for the finished pancakes?"

"Sure." Keith put his tablet down and grabbed a plate out of the cabinet and put it down next to the stove. The pair enjoyed the quiet until Sam had finished about half the pancake batter and the trio from Shiro's room stumbled into the common area.

"We made it!" Matt cheered seeing his father still at the stove.

"You did? How strange. Help set the table and get drinks then we can all eat." Sam replied teasingly, spurring the trio of new arrivals into motion.

"Oh yeah, my new mug." Keith mumbled before heading back into his room to grab the mug off the desk and return to the common area. He was waved into sitting down next to where his tablet had been moved to the table by Shiro when he had headed back towards the kitchen to help.

Matt bounced over to Keith plates in hand, before leaning on his head, "So. Do you like your new mug, boss?"

Keith gave Matt a strange look as best he could through his eyelashes, "I…. don't quite get it but it's nice."

Matt pouted, but Shiro started laughing, "I told you he wouldn't get it."

The new girl, Katie, brought over butter, cinnamon sugar, and maple syrup, "I knew he wouldn't get it, and I only met him this morning."

"Shush you. I'm your older brother and I know best." Matt stuck his nose in the air as he put the plates down. Shiro gently shoved Matt's head with his free hand as he dropped silverware on the table.

"You're only a year older than me, and you've claimed to be six so I'm not sure you count." Shiro snarked back heading into the kitchen to grab milk and juice, placing the bottles on the table when he returned and sat next to Matt.

Matt shrugged, "True enough."

Sam shook his head at the kids, turned off the stove, and brought over the plate of pancakes. "Keith gets first pick for helping and then the rest of you," He pointed at the other three with the spatula he was holding.

Keith just asked for the top two off the stack, which Sam gave him, and then ignored the rest of the table as he doctored his pancakes. He spread butter on them liberally and then sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar as the other three fought over the syrup, Sam copied Keith and dug in, letting the children be children for a bit. While they were eating Katie turned to Keith, "So, how crazy have these two," she gestured at Matt and Shiro, "Made you. Because I've heard stories from both sides and right now you sound like a saint, but if you can keep up with them you have to be some sort of compatible crazy."

Keith paused, arm wrapped around his plate, fork stabbed in a piece of pancake, "I guess I have a temper? But I've been Shiro's copilot for a year now so I dunno. It just kinda works. We figured out who should be doing what when and it just, works? I dunno how else to put it."

Katie put a hand to her heart, "You are adorable. I can't believe you're older than me. I'm not sure I believe this attitude problem you said you have."

Shiro snorted, "Oh trust me, it's there. You should have seen him have a go at some third years one time. You never told me what they said to you to set you off like that." Shiro looked at Keith, whose response to the implied question was to shove pancakes in his mouth and shrug with his best 'I-know-nothing' face. Shiro rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, you're not gonna tell. I can see that on your face."

"I don't gotta say nothin'." Replied Keith shoving another bite of pancake in his mouth to avoid having to speak.

"Yeah Shiro, boss is the boss, he doesn't have to talk to you." Matt joked before leaning over to Keith, "So, what _did_ you fight them about?"

Keith side eyed Matt, "I don't gotta tell you nothin' either. You said I'm the boss, so I'm the boss." Keith poured himself some milk into his new mug and drank it with a self satisfied look on his face.

Katie burst out laughing, "I see it now. I totally see it. What's your number, you need to keep me up to date with their nonsense."

Keith shrank some drawing his plate closer to himself, arm once again wrapped around the outside, "I don't have a phone right now."

Katie shrugged, "Happens. When you get one text me, I'll leave a post it on your door with my number. You need to tell me about these two. Both of their reports are biased."

Eventually breakfast passed and everyone except Katie had training or work. So the rest got into uniform and got ready to go, Matt hollering a "Hold down the fort for us, Pidges," on his way out.

After training, Sam took Katie and Keith out, "Alright Keith, let's see about getting you a new phone and when we're done I'll drop Katie off at home because she has school tomorrow."

"Ugh, Dad, can't I just skip tomorrow? I'm already ahead in all of my classes." Katie sighed pulling on her seatbelt.

"No, if you skip too often you automatically fail, remember? We had this convo last time you asked this." Sam replied driving towards the mall for Keith's second visit.

The trip seemed to go smoothly, Katie explaining the phones and their functions far better than the website Keith had been using. Sam ended up just adding Keith to his family cell plan, resulting in Keith sputtering and Katie cheering about Keith's "official" adoption. The trip back to the Garrison mostly consisted of Katie setting up Keith's phone as he watched. She added the numbers she thought were important favoriting her number and texting herself so she could add him too. Sam smiled as he watched his two youngest children bond in the rear view mirror.

The arrival back at the compound and subsequently the dorm Keith was jumped on for his number the second he walked through the door. Sam watched indulgently as the boys tussled on the floor, when Katie decided to sit on them to stop the fighting he finally intervened. "Now, now children. Be nice and share your brother equally. He's not used to being fought over." Sam scolded, shooing Katie off the pile and helping Keith extract himself, ignoring the redness of Keith's face.

Matt and Shiro pouted, but devolved to poking each other from where they sat on the floor. Sam rolled his eyes and watched as Katie went back to teaching Keith the functions of his phone. Sam watched his children and hoped days like this lasted forever.

The next few months leading up to the launch were spent either doing exhausting training or bonding as a team. One of the more entertaining team bonding things was the pictures for the Garrison to advertise with. There were individual pictures of them each in their official uniforms and then one group photo. Keith had to sit through each of his team members and the photographer fixing his hair every few minutes. He suffered through the treatment quietly, but demanded food after the photoshoot.

Another notable event had been at the end of February, which was Shiro's birthday. Or, more specifically, almost Shiro's birthday and after Shiro's birthday. Matt and Katie sung 'A Very Merry Unbirthday to You!' every time Shiro entered a room for three days. Sam eventually got the to stop by promising cake and ice cream, and then took all of them back to the house for strawberry shortcake that Colleen had made for that very reason. Keith's sleepy slip up when telling Shiro happy birthday became Shiro's new favorite thing, happy life birthday indeed.

A series of incidents that Matt and Shiro caused to get Keith to socialize with his peers occurred not long after Lance and Hunk from the overnight trip enrolled. Lance apparently remembered Keith from the tour and Hunk was willing to poke around the records room and find him. This sent Keith into a tizzy of trying to find new spots to hide in, one of which seemed to link to a tunnel to outside the garrison. Keith had no idea who made it or why, but he fully appreciated it. Lance seemed intent on making Keith notice him while Hunk was mostly tagging along to get a glimpse of the tech in the restricted areas. By the time they were preparing for prelaunch quarantine, Keith was so tired of avoiding them that he didn't have the energy for his and Shiro's nightly continuation of War.

The night before quarantine Sam dragged them all home for dinner. Bae Bae and Katie greeted them at the door, Bae Bae managing to knock Keith over onto the porch. Katie managed to corral the dog back inside, Matt and Shiro hauling Keith back to his feet. Colleen kissed them each on the cheek and organized them into bringing the food over the table. There was some of the typical American foods, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas, and salad; there was also some less American foods like, rice, yakitori, curry, and kimchi. Once everyone was seated, Keith dished some of the rice and kimchi into his bowl before anything else. He took a couple bites before asking, "Shiro can you pass me the curry?"

Shiro passed the bowl over, "Fine, trade you for the rice?" Keith passed the requested dish over and then dished himself some of the curry.

"So," Matt started leaning in, "last night of home cooking, we better enjoy it."

"Ah, yes. Once we hit space nothing but freeze dried peas for months." Sam laughed as he dished potatoes onto his plate.

"Don't lie dad, you know you love those freeze dried peas." Matt pointed at Sam with his fork, waving it around jokingly.

"Ah, yes. You know I do. Almost as much as you love broccoli." Sam smiled as Matt made an ick face.

"I wish I could go with you. Kerberos sounds so cool!" Katie sighed wistfully, poking at her potatoes then deciding to grab some curry and rice instead.

"Just you wait. Something tells me that you're going to have your own crew someday. You're going to fly with them to worlds so far away, we can't even imagine. I bet my bottom dollar you're going to be part of something that makes the whole universe sit up and take notice." Sam said patting Katie's hand, "Maybe your crew will be all four of you young ones, let me rest my old bones."

"Dad, you're not _that_ old. Maybe our next mission will be the entire Holt space squad." Matt replied.

"Then who will pilot the ship? None of you are pilots?"

"Keith, boss, buddy, how many times to I have to tell you? You and Shiro are part of our family, and therefore, part of the Holt space squad." Matt reached over to ruffle Keith's hair, while Shiro nudged Keith from the other side.

As they finished eating Colleen asked, "Anyone save room for dessert?" The resulting tussle was one of the most amusing things Sam ever caught on video. The next time someone said Shiro and Matt were mature adults, Sam was going to show them this video.

That night all four of the children camped out in the living room watching movies to keep from worrying about quarantine the next day. Keith had never been quite as confused or quite as comfortable as he was when he fell asleep that night.

The trip back to the Garrison in the morning was quiet and oddly tense. Keith was trying hard not to let the pressure get to him. Quarantine was the final step before launch, and after launch, not matter what happened on the mission, it would go down in history. As they entered the Garrison and trailed into the restricted areas, Keith let himself consider the scope of what they were doing now. They entered the quarantine hallway and Keith stared at his designated door with mounting apprehension.

The time had come, all of their training was leading up to this. All they had to do was get through quarantine and then they would be on the mission that would put them in the record books. Keith paced outside of his assigned door, he could see Matt jogging in place nervously down the hallway, and Shiro seeming to be meditating while standing. Keith couldn't see Sam who had been assigned to the opposite end. Keith's attention jerked back to his door when it hissed open. Keith entered the first room and took a deep breath, the nerves building when the door hissed closed behind him with a distinct click of it locking.

Keith walked into the room further and found an inbuilt screen with a checklist of things for him to do before he could move to the next room. Keith frowned at the screen, considering his options. He didn't want to leave his knife here with the Garrison, but he was supposed to leave all of his clothes and other outside items in the first room and then do the decontamination shower. Keith started taking off his clothes as he considered the problem. There were no cameras in the first three rooms of decontamination since he would be naked in them, so if he was sneaky, he could probably get his knife through undetected…

Keith decided his only relic of his parents was more important and that he was sure enough of his slight of hand to get away with taking it. It wasn't like whatever the knife was made of ever rusted or dulled so he could put it through decontamination too? Keith finished taking off his clothes and shoes, grabbed his sheathed knife, and waited for the next door to open. The knife in hand helped soothe his anxiety at being naked in a series of glaring white, sterile rooms.

The door opened with a slight hiss, he could feel the pressurized air make contact with his bare skin. He walked through the door, the same unsettling hiss and click of it locking behind him happened again. He walked over to the showerhead and turned it on, it was once again in front of a checklist for him to complete. He waited for the shower to ding indicating the correct heat before stepping under its spray. He ran his hands through his hair making sure it was all wet before grabbing the provided shampoo and washing for the mandated amount of time, before making sure it was fully rinsed. He then went on to use the liquid soap, making sure to wash his knife with it before washing himself. He sighed, the white walls were eerie and the shower was a touch too warm for comfort but it had to be done. His only satisfaction was in knowing anyone who came and visited during quarantine had gone through the same level of washing and embarrassing standing around naked.

Keith stood under the water as he waited for the shower to end, fidgeting in place. When the water abruptly stopped Keith squeezed the residual water out of his hair and made his way over to the door to the next room. The door hissed open, the pressurized air feeling like a smack in the face, and Keith entered the next room. It was just as bare as the previous rooms, except it had a small inbuilt dumbwaiter which had a towel and a complete set of clothes on it. The clothes at least looked similar to his usual clothes, a black shirt and pants with a plain black belt and his usual choice of undergarments. He was mildly disturbed that someone knew his underwear preference, but at least it all looked the right size. Keith toweled off as much water as he could before focusing on drying his hair, which he knew would still be damp for hours. He got dressed and stared down at his bare feet, was he going to get shoes, or were they spending their time in individual quarantine shoeless? The door hissing open to the next section answered that question as a no for shoes. Keith hastily shoved his knife into the back his belt and draped the fabric of his shirt over it as naturally as he could before he made his way to the next room, just barely remembering to leave the towel in the previous room.

The door hissed closed behind him and he knew he had reached his home for the next week. The room was just as white and sterile as the ones before, but it had a bed and a desk with a tablet on it unlike the previous rooms. As he looked around he saw a door to the left he assumed contained his bathroom, and on the opposite wall there was a dumbwaiter like the room before, which he assumed was to supply food and other supplies. The wall in front of the desk had a window that showed their soon to be combined quarters as well as the thick metal door that led to it. There was another window that showed him into Matt's room. Matt himself was not in his room, but Keith could see glasses on the desk meaning Matt's normal ones had been left on the other side. Keith could envision Matt's whining about the fit now.

Keith grabbed his tablet off his desk and flopped onto his bed so he could investigate. The tablet was simple, like a bigger version of his phone honestly, there seemed to be a couple chat features on it and ebooks but nothing else. As he nosed through the chat programs he found he could message the Garrison, Base Comms, Matt, Shiro, Sam, and someone at the other end of the contact "Needs," which he assumed was for food. Keith was jolted out of his inspection when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Matt entered his room and squinted as he looked around, trying to find his glasses. Once he found them and put them on, making faces at how they sat on his face, he came over and waved at Keith from their window. Keith waved back and held up his tablet to show Matt what he was doing. Matt stuck his tongue out and went to check his other window which showed Shiro's room. Keith turned back to his tablet and decided to check out the books.

Eventually his tablet pinged with a message from Shiro, _look up Matt's been trying to get your attention._

Keith clicked over to the chat app and messaged Matt, _Do you need something?_ He had finally found a comfortable position and didn't want to move to stare at the window. He switched back to the book he had been reading about radio signals as he waited for a response. There was a ping of the messenger and Keith switched back over to it.

Shiro:  
 _Did you see my message?_

 _yeah_

 _why didn't you say something to matt?_

 _i sent him a thing but he didn't reply_

 _Keith, just go play charades with him_

 _fiiiiine_

Keith reluctantly got up from the bed and gave Matt an unimpressed stare, but Matt just grinned widely. Matt pantomimed holding a phone to his ear, Keith waved the tablet in response. Matt shook his head and repeated the gesture, Keith huffed and sat on the edge of his desk with his arms crossed. Matt pouted and held his hands together in a please motion and then repeated the telephone gesture, Keith huffed and opened the tablet again.

Shiro:

 _do you know what he wants?_

 _matt? No clue, i can't see him too well from here_

 _he keeps making this telephone gesture but doesn't reply when i message him_

 _oh he wants to play telephone_

 _play what now?_

 _telelphone, you start by saying something and it gets passed around the circle until the last person gets it and says what they heard_

 _and how can we play that when we cant talk_

 _i think he wants to do it using charades_

 _really?_

 _try it and see_

Keith huffed and looked up at Matt who was making faces at him. Keith stood and faced Matt before nodding. Matt's face broke out into a blinding smile and he partied for a second before staring at Keith, since Keith had to start the chain as he was the end. Keith thought for a second and mimed looking through a telescope pointed at the stars. Matt nodded and went over to his other window and mimed something at Shiro. Keith sat down at his tablet and waited for Sam's guess. Eventually Keith's tablet dinged:

Sam:

 _Was it pirates?_

 _What? No. How did you even_

 _Well, Shiro was acting like a lookout_

 _It was stargazing_

 _Now I see why you were confused._

Keith squinted up at Matt and tried to convey "what the fuck" in facial expressions. Matt just gave a toothy grin in response. The day crawled past with Matt coaxing Keith into playing games while they all desperately tried to ignore the feeling of being watched. The meal they received eventually was "specially formulated" for them, meaning it was the most boring thing Keith had ever had. Plain chicken, steamed vegetables, white rice, the meal reminded Keith of the jokes he heard about white parents cooking. Eventually the lights went out, indicating the beginning of the night cycle, a single light in the combined quarters leaving strange shadows on the walls. Keith curled up in his bed under the uncomfortable white sheets, and forced himself to sleep.

The lights switching on abruptly ripped Keith from his unhappy dozing. He had woken from a dream of his mother saying something about avoiding needles earlier, but he hadn't wanted to commit to waking up so he had dozed back to that fuzzy line between being awake and being asleep. He rolled out of bed to see the dumbwaiter had clothes on it, but no breakfast. Grumbling unhappily he grabbed the new clothes and went into the bathroom to do his morning routine. When he returned there was a lady dressed in pure white with a medical kit in hand standing in his room.

Keith felt his breath hitch, he knew the blood tests were coming, but so soon? Keith took a deep breath as the nurse? Doctor? Noticed him and directed him to sit at his desk chair while she prepped her supplies. He sat there staring silently into the combined quarters as he felt the tie around his arm and the wet swipe of the alcohol wipe. He felt himself stop breathing as he hyperfocused on the needle pinching and entering his arm. He watched as the vials were set on the table, one, two, three, four, how many did they need? He felt the tie come off his arm, then the needle was removed and the puncture covered with folded gauze and a bandaid. The nurse patted his shoulder and put the supplies away and then put the medical kit on the dumbwaiter, which vanished upwards.

The nurse smiled as she left, the door hissing closed behind her, Keith still frozen in his chair. Keith gasped for breath, vaguely recognizing that he was having a panic attack. He staggered the few short steps over to his bed and collapsed on it. He ignored the slight thump of the dumbwaiter arriving as he tried to ground himself, but in a pure white room it was hard to find something to focus on. Eventually he dragged himself into a sitting position to see what the dumbwaiter brought. The tray contained a plate with eggs and fruit, a bowl of oatmeal, and a huge water bottle; Keith silently picked up the tray and sat at his desk, dumping the fruit into the oatmeal and eating mechanically. He put the water bottle on his desk and put the tray back on the dumbwaiter before finally recognizing that his tablet was dinging repeatedly. Keith struggled with it for a second before seeing the messages from Matt.

Matt:

 _Keith buddy?_

 _Boss?_

 _I saw u freaking out over there_

 _Boss?_

 _HELLO_

 _STOP IGNORING MEEEEEEEE :(_

 _k_

 _e_

 _i_

 _t_

 _h_

 _im here what_

 _are you ok boss?_

 _im fine_

 _LIES_

 _fuk u im fine_

 _UGHHH when we get out of here_

 _I AM HUGGING YOU SO HARD_

Keith let the tablet drop onto the bed and ignored the further pings, when Matt tried to get his attention in the window he just curled up in a ball on his bed and faced the wall. He eventually found the settings and muted the chat program and read more of the book about radio signals, the section on transmission in a vacuum was of particular interest. After lunch finally came and went, Keith unmuted the chat program.

Matt:

 _I'm mad at you_

 _I'm gonna get Shiro_

Shiro:

 _Keith are you ok?_

 _Keith?_

 _Buddy?_

Sam:

 _Keith?_

 _Are you alright?_

 _Take your time._

Keith replied about being fine to all of the inquiries and waited for the replies. He spent the rest of the day playing 'I spy' with Shiro via text as a way to relax. He could see Matt pouting at him through the window periodically but couldn't bring himself to wave. Every time he stopped focusing he could faintly hear his mother's voice telling him to never let anyone take his blood. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was going to find out why she told him that very soon.

Keith had nightmares all that night, eventually he just stared up at the ceiling instead of going back to sleep. The flare of the lights turning on made him flinch and cover his head but Keith did not want to get up today. Something told him today was going to be a bad day. The morning started identically to the day before, clothes were delivered but no food, leaving Keith vaguely terrified of the idea of more blood tests. Like the day before the nurse was back with her medical kit, but unlike the day before it didn't look like anyone else was being tested.

Just like the day before, she drew several vials of blood, he could count nine vials that she put in the medical kit. Keith knew deep in his heart something was wrong, and because of that there was no way he was going to Kerberos, not if they were acting like this. Keith spent the rest of the day curled up in a ball on his bed, ignoring food, Matt's frantic waving, and the never ending buzz of his tablet. When he finally passed out into a restless sleep, he knew that when he woke up it would be like no time had passed at all. He knew the day would just repeat until he was dismissed, he knew it. Eventually he sent a text to Shiro when he woke up,

Shiro:

 _im sorry_

 _i didnt know_

 _explore space for me ok_

 _Keith?_

 _i know theyre not gonna let me go_

 _too interested in my blood_

 _good luck_

 _Keith, buddy, Keith?_

 _Keith what's happening_

Keith turned the tablet off and let it drop to the bed. It took just over a minute for Matt to appear in his window, pounding and yelling, but the soundproofing was too good. Keith watched as Matt tired himself out yelling at the window, eventually leaning against it staring hopelessly at Keith who stared back.

"I'm sorry, Matt." Keith said, even though he knew it wouldn't get through the window. Matt sniffed, drew a heart on the window with his fingers and disappeared from view. Once the day cycle began, just as Keith predicted it was exactly the same. He finished changing and the nurse was back to draw more blood. He knew why they hadn't dismissed him yet, they wanted more blood and once he was out of quarantine he would no longer be available. Keith decided to ignore everyone for the rest of the week he would be trapped, only talking to the others if his treatment wasn't being brought up. The day before the end of individual quarantine Keith sent the rest of the team a message,

K Team:

Remember guys you promised

Kick ass go to space represent the human race for me, ok

You Promised

Matt You got it Boss

Sam Will do, Keith

Shiro wathc over yourself ok,

Matt Shiro your spelling

Shiro Shhhhh ;

thats alarming

Shiro :3cccc

thats worse

Matt We'll call and send you pictures!

Matt Promise!

Keith steeled himself for the news he knew was coming that morning. He changed into the new clothes, shoving his carefully hidden knife into the back of his waistband and covering it with his shirt. He watched the door and waited for someone to come tell him the news. He could tell the others had been released into the common area even as his door stayed firmly shut. He could see Sam and Shiro holding Matt even as Matt stared into his room with resigned despair. It hurt Keith to know that Matt had been so personally affected. He knew that the Holts and Shiro saw him as one of their own, but to see it so plainly on Matt's face made Keith's heart hurt.

Eventually, as expected, an officer and a doctor came into Keith's room, the lack of hissing from the door told Keith that they had turned off quarantine procedures. The officer and the doctor shared a glance before the officer looked Keith in the eyes and said, "Cadet Officer, due to abnormalities present in your blood, we cannot, in good consciousness, send you on the mission and possibly risk all those involved. Therefore, you have been dismissed from your role as co-pilot. Please return to your dorm and await further instruction."

Keith saluted crisply to the officer, turned and waved at the rest of the crew, and headed out of the series of rooms back into the Garrison proper. As he marched back to his dorm he could feel a strange reassuring rumble in his chest that reminded him to keep his head up. He may have been cut from the mission, but he had still be accomplished enough to be selected for such a mission at the age of sixteen. Keith heard whispers as he passed by classmates on his way to his dorm, the fallout would beginbe soon.

Once he reached his dorm and closed the door, he slid to the floor and tried to ignore the empty feeling in his chest. The dorm would be empty of all the things he expected of it until after the mission. At one point he would have appreciated the quiet and the space, but he still expected Matt to pop up and call him boss at random, the nightly continuation of his game of war with Shiro, or even finding Sam grading papers at the table with a cold cup of forgotten tea.

Keith allowed himself a moment before going to his room and grabbing a new set of clothes and heading to shower, he wanted to wash the lingering feeling of quarantine off himself. A quick shower and a change of clothes later, Keith felt ready to deal with the rest of the world again. There was still a warm purring feeling in his chest he couldn't place the origin of, but it made him feel less alone so he decided not to think too hard about it.

Wandering back into his room he decided to check and see if anything had changed during their week in quarantine. He found a set of his uniform on his desk from the first level of sterilization, he picked it up to put it in his laundry bag and found his phone under the pile. Keith grabbed it and sat on his bed, pulling up the contacts list and tapping the one labeled Pidgin Sister. The ring went one for several seconds, leaving Keith to contemplate if she even had her phone with her. Right as he was about to hang up and go to lunch in the cafeteria, the call connected.

"Hello? Who is this and why do you have Keith's phone?"

Keith swallowed, tears edging into the corners of his eyes at the sound of the first friendly voice in a week, "Hey Katie. It's me."

There was a pause and then, "Keith? How do you have your phone? We didn't expect to hear from any of you until after you guys got into space. Did they let you have a phone call in group quarantine?"

"Uh, no. Uhm," Keith scrunched his blanket with his toes and looked around for the words to explain, "Katie, can you come here? To Garrison? Or get your mom to come grab me? I need to explain."

"Keith, what happened?" There was a demanding force to her words.

"I-I, I can't do this over the phone. Please come get me. Please, I don't wanna be here anymore it feels so empty." Keith curled into a ball, phone pressed to his ear. He didn't want to be here in the empty dorm with people he knew he couldn't see.

"Okay, okay. One sec, MOM!" Katie had covered the phone, but the sound still came through, "Mom! Mom? Where is she?" Katie muttered to herself, "Give me a- what's this? Ugh, sorry mom's out at a meeting for work. She should be back in a couple hours, can you hold on until dinner? I'll text her to pick you up from the Garrison gate when she gets off."

Keith nodded and mumbled into the phone, "Yeah, whatever, just. I don't wanna be here please. Can you talk to me for a while, it's to quiet with the others gone."

"You're back in the dorm then? Bae Bae, sit! Ugh. Dogs, yanno? Talk? I can do that. Do you want to help me with homework? I mean, I don't actually need help, but as something for me to talk about and I do need to do it. So, yeah. You're helping me with homework. Anyways-" Katie rambled, the echo of her voice telling him it was on speaker phone. He heard the rustling of papers and tuned back in some, "-why do they give out paper homework, can't it just be done on tablet like everything else. Anyways, Keith! Do you know anything about the Geneva Peace Accords?"

Keith groaned, "Can't you ask me something easy? Like, something about languages?"

Katie snickered, "Not fond of history?"

"Not if it doesn't include space. Can't you just, google that?" Keith whined, relaxing from his curled position some.

"I could, but you're right here! So, chop chop, Geneva Peace accords. Go."

"Ugh, fiiiine. Wait, this is your homework, why should I?" Keith asked indignant as he sat up on his bed.

"Because it's distract~ing. C'mon, you asked for me to talk, and I need to do this so two birds, one stone." Katie teased.

Keith rolled his eyes but got up and grabbed his tablet from the drawer of his desk and sat back down on his bed. It took a minute of searching the internet before Keith started summarizing the information for Katie, "Back in-"

"Yeah I know that part, skip to the whys please." Katie interrupted causing Keith to roll his eyes and scroll down the article he found.

"Fine, after the ramping tension between the US and like, everyone, it came very close to nuclear level World War Three. And-" Keith narrated the article to Pidge. Every once in awhile they devolved into snarky comments about the governments of the time doing stupid things, but Keith kept them mostly on track. Keith allowed himself to relax into the constant stream of Katie talking. Rambling was definitely a requirement of being a Holt, Keith mused remembering Matt acting similarly.

Katie managed to keep Keith distracted for about two hours before Keith was hungry enough to need food. Keith steeled himself for going to the cafeteria and asked Katie, "When is your mom coming again?"

"She said she would come grab you at four and to pack for a while since she's decided we're keeping you until launch. She's also apparently bullied the Garrison into letting us into ground control for launch, so we'll get to say bye to them…. Kinda directly at least." Katie explained.

"Okay, thanks. I'm going to get some food and pack. See you in like, two hours?" Keith held the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he adjusted his gloves, mentally preparing for the cafeteria.

"See you in two hours! And you owe me an explanation! Bye!" Katie hung up leaving Keith to himself. Keith shoved his phone into his pocket, took a few deep breaths, then left the dorm to go to the cafeteria. He didn't see anyone until he hit the hallway that the cafeteria was on, and then he heard the whispering start again.

Keith ignored all of it, his head held high, as he walked up to the line and grabbed food blindly. He went and sat at the corner table and finally looked at what he grabbed. He groaned at the combination of macaroni and cheese and meatloaf. He shoveled down the food, ignoring the unfortunate taste, and booked it back to his dorm the moment he was done. When the cafeteria door closed behind him, he heard an explosion of people talking. Keith looked back, he hadn't noticed exactly how quiet it had been.

Keith quickly marched back to his room and shoved all of his casual clothes and toiletries into a duffle bag he snitched from Shiro's room. He checked the time, it was only three o'clock. He decided to empty out the things in the fridge that would go bad, but paused when he saw it was empty. He could vaguely remember Sam saying something about doing it the day before quarantine. Keith huffed and sat at the table and looked around for something to do. He saw the deck of cards that he and Shiro used to play War and moved it from the window sill to his desk drawer to keep it safe. Seeing nothing else to do Keith grabbed the duffle and went and sat on the steps outside the Garrison main gate. He ended up playing solitaire on his phone for what was left of the hour before Colleen picked him up.

The moment Keith walked through the door of the Holt house, Katie jumped him babbling a mile a minute. "How are you here, what happened? Did something go wrong, where's dad and Matt and Shiro? Why were you so scared?"

Colleen carefully pulled Katie off Keith, "Let him breath honey, maybe then he can answer."

Katie pouted but then turned back to Keith, "So?!"

Keith looked away, crossing his arms defensively over his chest, "Well, uh, I, I failed out of quarantine. Something weird about my blood. Everyone else is fine, so the mission is going on as scheduled. I'm sorry to have worried you."

"Oh come here you big goof." Katie tugged Keith's arms away from his chest and hugged him for all she was worth. "I'm just glad you're ok."

"Thanks." Keith mumbled into the top of her head, and he finally let himself relax.

The three weeks passed quietly, Keith selected his classes for next trimester including several unusual choices since he had the time. His Kerberos Mission training exempted him from several classes, so he took another semester of flight maintenance and Russian and finished out the practical chemistry courses. Katie started investigating her choices since she was planning on joining sometime within the next year. She whined about having to take the basic classes but cheered up when Keith told her the instructors loved to shove people into the higher level classes if you seemed too bored.

On the day of the launch Colleen drove the three of them to the Garrison, stopping briefly to drop off Keith's duffle bag, and heading into the restricted zone of the Base Communications room. They were allowed to make a call to the flight team who was being shuttled out to the launch pad several miles into the desert. Matt was overjoyed by being able to see them all again, since there would be no personal communication after passing Jupiter on the way out to Kerberos. Shiro and Sam played it cooler, but were obviously both excited as well. Shiro had relaxed immensely when Colleen told him that she would watch over Keith for him, Keith pouted at the implication of needing to be monitored but smiled at Shiro before they had to hang up.

"T-minus nine minutes and counting. Remember folks, we're making history today! Weather?" The base comms officer started the countdown and final preflight checks.

"Clear, we're good to go!"

"Fuel?"

"Check."

"The crew is on board. Continue checks."

"Air?"

"Check, readings are green, the recycler is live. Airlock is sealed."

"Software?"

"Check, no problems."

"Hardware?"

"Check, no visible structural problems."

"Comms?"

"Check, we can hear you loud and clear Base Comms." came Shiro's voice from the speakers.

"Pilot, you preflight checks?"

"Half done, so far no problems."

"Science?"

"Check, all instruments pass base operational testing."

"T-minus four minutes and counting."

"Pilot?"

"Checks are good. No errors. Checking flight plan for atmospheric entry."

"Weather, final check?"

"We're good. No inclement weather approaching. Flight plan is good."

"T-minus One minute and counting."

"T-minus 30 seconds. Sound suppression system activated."

The trio watched from the corner communication station as the checks continued quickly.

"T-minus 10 seconds, ignitors activated."

"T-minus 6 seconds, primary engines online, stabilizer arm retracted."

"T-minus 0 seconds, bolts removed, secondary engines online, we have lift off!"

"T-plus 2 minutes, boosters released. All lights green."

"T-plus 20 minutes, launch tank released, exiting orbit."

"T-plus 22 minutes, atmospheric exit. Mission is a go!" A ragged cheer came from the entire room. Even though the launch had gone as smoothly as it could, there was always the inherent risk of a problem that would cause the whole thing to fail.

The trio were escorted out of Base Comms and informed that they could come back any time on Saturdays to do their weekly allotted personal calls. Keith went back to his room after hugging Colleen and Katie, both of whom promised to text him regularly. Keith spent his two months before class switching between auditing random classes and assisting the flight instructors in demonstrating complicated maneuvers. The simulations never felt quite right without Shiro at his side, but Keith succeeded with little fuss. The strange freshman from months ago–Lance? Sometimes he went out of his way to try and interrogate Keith about the physics of some of the stunts he did, which resulted in Keith practicing his Russian to avoid answering.

The last week before the semester switch; as a treat, Keith, Hunk, and several other high ranking students got to do a week trip to the International Space Station to restock its supplies. One of the permanently assigned astronauts showed Keith the monitoring equipment they had for the _Orpheus_ constantly tracking the ship's progress through the solar system. On the way back planetside Keith and Hunk bonded over the irritation (and Hunk's motion sickness) of how the pilot handled the craft, Keith muttering about how he could have done it so much better in his sleep. Keith and Hunk traded cell numbers after finding out they would be in the same Flight Maintenance course during the next semester.

The fall trimester went about as well as Keith expected. With the _Orpheus_ out of range for personal calls, most of Keith's social interaction came from Katie and Hunk. Keith feared the day the pair would meet because he knew the moment they would start discussing tech, which would be almost immediately upon introduction, he would be left behind and confused. Keith was smart, sure, but most aspects of tech eluded him and his Flight Maintenance grades reflected it.

Keith had kept a careful eye on the date as it approached November. If everything had gone to plan, the Kerberos Mission would be reporting after its first walk on Kerberos on the fifteenth. Keith bullied and charmed some of the Base Comms staff into allowing him into the room for the report. Keith sat at the corner comms station with a headset on to hear the report, but nothing happened.

"Ground Control to _Orpheus_ , respond. _Orpheus_ , respond. _Orpheus_ , please respond."

The silence was deafening. The entire room burst into a flurry of movement as techs pulled up camera feeds from inside the ship, logs, the vitals transmitted by the spacesuits, everything they could find to figure out why there was a lack of response. The camera feed eventually got through, laggy and flickering due to sheer distance between relays, and it showed nothing out of the ordinary. The ship interior looked fine. From one of the cameras they could see out the front window and there was a strange purple light flickering. When they tried to switch to either the ice extractor's video feed or the spacesuit feeds all the got was static. Keith could hear something odd over the feed, but nothing that made sense. Keith felt icy panic sink into his bones, he needed to be there, maybe if he was there none of this would have happened, he should have been allowed to go.

One of the techs who had allowed Keith in the room placed a hand on his shoulder, attempting to console him. Suddenly all the feeds blacked out into complete silence.

"Get that feed back up! What happened!" The main comms officer demanded from his station in the center of the room.

"The relays all read green sir. Something must have happened on the _Orpheus_. Possible transmission error, we won't be able to tell unless _Orpheus_ comes back online." Another tech called from his station near Keith.

The entirety of Base Comms waited with ever sinking hopes for reconnection. At the ten minute mark, Iverson swept into the room with a frantic tech following him. Iverson looked around the room and announced, "If there is no contact in the next ten minutes, we will initiate mission failure protocol. In T-minus 10 minutes, _Orpheus_ has 24 hours to respond or the mission will be announced a failure and those who embarked will be considered KIA. Until that 24 hour window is up, no one is allowed to speak of it. Got it?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Iverson glared down at Keith, "The information blackout is binding to you as well. If you leak any information that something has gone wrong your ass will be out the door and you and anyone you told will be persona non grata on base. Capiche?"

"Yes sir." Keith grumbled removing the headset he had on. Iverson left, leaving a horrible sort of silence in his wake.

Quietly, the tech next to him turned to Keith a sad look on his face, "We've lost contact as you saw. I'm sorry son. It must have been an error. But you heard Iverson, they have 24 hours. Hopefully we will have heard from them by then and it was just a freak solar flare or something interfering with the equipment."

The man looked consoling, but Keith knew there would be no more contact. Something had gone terribly wrong and he was trapped here; planets away from where he might have made a difference. He felt something deep in his heart break, all of the people who knew him best were all gone in one fell swoop and he couldn't even tell anyone. Desperate for some form of emotional release, he sent Katie a text before turning off his phone.

Katie:

 _im so sorry_

* * *

Keith stared at the news broadcast stupefied. There had been no warning or prior announcement of the mission failure, it had just been broadcast to the entire planet. And, worst of all, the reason they gave, was _pilot error_. Keith knew the ship had landed just fine, he had seen the video, so blaming it on _pilot error_ pissed him right off.

Keith stormed out of his dorm, radiating anger blatantly enough that people literally dived out of his way as he stalked into the officer's wing. He slammed the door to Iverson's office open. The man looked up from papers on his desk calmly, like he had been expecting this. "Come in and close the door behind you."

"Fuck you. Fuck you!" Keith repeated putting more emphasis on it by slamming his hands on the desk, "What the fuck. _Pilot error._ Fuck you. Shiro landed the craft fine. I saw it! That's bullshit. So what the everloving fuck did I just see on the news?"

"Sit down cadet." Keith remained standing, fuming, chest heaving in barely contained fury. Iverson frowned, "Cadet. I said, _sit down._ "

Keith sat, shoulders hunched, finger gripping the edge of the chair, Iverson nodded approvingly. "I know this will be of no comfort to you, but the reason is for your own good-"

Keith exploded, standing so fast the chair tipped over, "For my own good?! How can blaming Shiro be _for my own good._ How?!"

Iverson glowered, "You will remain _seated._ " Keith reluctantly righted the chair with more force than strictly necessary and sat, face stony. Iverson nodded in approval before continuing, "As I was saying. It was necessary to report the failure as such for insurance reasons. The insurance would only pay out if it was an accident. Blaming it on pilot error would cause the least investigations and assure yourself, Shirogane's parents, and the Holts would all be compensated."

Keith scoffed, "So you would rather blame Shiro? He was your best pilot and you're just going to destroy his reputation, and possibly the Garrison's reputation, for _insurance money._ Like, what fucking example are you trying to set here." Keith stood again as the anger coursed through him, "You're saying your ace pilot fucked up. That should place the blame squarely on you. But you're not going to swing it that way are you. You're going to put the blame fully on Shiro and treat him like he's some incomp-"

"That is _enough_ , cadet. This decision was made by the Garrison generals as the best decision. You may object all you like, but it will not change the outcome." Iverson growled, finally losing his composure.

Keith couldn't bear to listen anymore. He couldn't focus, there were tears of frustration in his eyes and he could hear his pulse in his ears like the waves of the ocean. He slammed the door open, and looked back at Iverson, "You could have at least not been cowards and _told us_ before we found out from the fucking news!" Keith slammed the door behind him and took off running, he had to be anywhere but here surrounded by his memories of Shiro, Matt, and Sam.

Keith slammed the door to the roof open, jarring it off its hinges. Keith took a moment to stare at the stars above and scream in rage, those stars had taken his best friends away from him. He took a couple gasping breaths and decided he couldn't deal with the view of the stars twinkling away like nothing was wrong. Keith ran back inside, the door slamming into the frame as it bounced back open behind him. Left, left, straight, right, straight, Keith stopped keeping track of the turns he was making as he ran. By the time he was finally winded he was deep in the restricted access area near where the engineers made prototypes. Keith entered one of the hangers, crawled under a tarp draped on one of the prototypes, and cried until he was exhausted and had no tears left to shed.

Hours later, Keith woke from his doze to hearing voices. One was vaguely familiar, but the other was unknown. The one he knew, was that Hunk? Was talking about how grateful he was to be allowed to help with this assignment. Keith saw feet approaching his position and resigned himself to being discovered. The tarp was pulled off, the light of the room blinding Keith who curled into a smaller ball.

"What? Who? Oh. Oh no, you're Shiro's baby duckling aren't you." The voice Keith didn't know asked, a girl about Shiro's age kneeling in front of him when he looked up. Hunk hovered behind her awkwardly.

Keith nodded, Shiro's duckling was a good enough descriptor for him to agree with, and rested his cheek on his knees. He could tell the girl was smiling at him from her tone of voice as she said, "I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what you're going through. Do you need help going back to your dorm?"

Keith shook his head violently, he did not want to go back to a place full of Shiro's stuff, memories of Matt, and the ever lingering scent of Sam's cooking attempts. He couldn't bear the idea of going to what had become his home and finding it empty again, but with the knowledge it was permanent. He couldn't bring himself to call Colleen or Katie either, they both had to be dealing with the information in their own ways and would have no time for him anymore.

Keith was jerked out of his thoughts by Hunk, who was kneeling in front of him and holding one of Keith's hands so gently between his larger ones. Keith choked on a sob that got caught in his throat, and Hunk bodily pulled Keith into his lap, unwilling to watch his acquaintance (friend?) break down and do nothing. In a quiet voice Hunk asked, "Hey Keith? Buddy? Would it be ok if we moved you to one of the chairs over there so we can work? We can tell you all about our project and get your mind off things for a bit?"

Keith nodded into where he had shoved his face into Hunk's shoulder. Hunk gently maneuvered Keith into a position so Hunk could lift him before slowly standing. Hunk gently deposited Keith into one of the chairs at the drafting station and ruffled the smaller boys hair. Hunk went over to rejoin his partner, the pair had a quiet discussion before Hunk started explaining their project as they worked, just loudly enough that Keith didn't have to strain to hear. Apparently Yasmin was doing her senior research on personalized hovercycles. The prototype was almost working, they were just having problems deciding on how the controls would work.

As they debated button and control placement Keith slowly scooted over towards the prototype again in the spinny chair Hunk had deposited him in. Eventually he made it, he watched them argue their two different control placements before closing his eyes. Keith tried imagining the controls as Yasmin described them and frowned, her placement of the ignition and the emergency brake placement just got in the way. When he tried imagining it Hunks way the acceleration wouldn't have enough control, which would result in spectacular crashes.

When Keith opened his eyes both Yasmin and Hunk were staring at him, Yasmin leaned forward, "Well? Whose placement is better?!"

Keith stared back at her before in a tiny, rough, voice saying, "Neither. Do Hunks ignition and emergency brakes, and your version of everything else. Should work okay."

Both engineers got considering looks on their faces at that feedback. Keith smiled slightly, barely noticeable at all, as the pair devolved into tech babble about wire placements and power. Keith let their voices drift over him, and sighed. He knew he wasn't okay now, and wouldn't be for a while, but maybe he could still be helpful.

It took Keith almost a week to turn on his phone again and stay in his dorm for more than ten minutes. He had been bunking out in Yasmin's hangar since she didn't mind having a free tester since Keith wasn't going to classes, the prototype seemed to be working well and Keith had even talked Hunk into painting it red. So by the time he got his phone charged and on he realized he'd missed almost a hundred calls and texts, mostly from Katie. The last one he saw made him worry some.

Katie:

 _I am finding out what happened no matter what. If you want to help me, then get me into one of the offices on the 22nd at lunch._

 _fine, but dont do anything risky, matt would never forgive me if u got hurt_

 _oh good your alive. Meet me at the gate to let me in at 1130 tomorrow_

 _i already said fine_

Keith sighed, he knew he should tell her something, but Iverson's threat still lurked at the back of his mind. He slept restlessly that night, the voices of Shiro, Matt, and Sam joining his mother's voice as they told him that they would have been alive without him around. Keith woke ridiculously early and went to the gym to beat up any poor fool who would spar and the punching bag when no one would approach him after he flipped one of the grad students over his head. By the time it was eleven o'clock the entire gym was terrified of him. The sigh of relief when he left was audible out in the hallway.

Katie was tapping her foot impatiently, arms crossed, hair tied up in a tight side ponytail to keep it out of her way when Keith reached the sign in area. He checked her in quickly and the pair proceeded to the officer's wing. The halls were mostly empty since almost everyone was at lunch, as they approached Iverson's office, Katie told Keith to play lookout and text if someone was coming. Keith wasn't sure this was the best plan but the look on Katie's face told him there would be no arguing with her.

Keith let himself be banished to the hall as Katie worked whatever magic she was going to try on Iverson's computer. A few minutes later, Iverson appeared followed by two security guards acting like he'd been alerted by something. Keith sent Katie a text as promised even as he slipped further out of view of the hall.

Katie:

 _Iverson is coming_

He didn't get an answer, and hadn't expected one. A few minutes later Keith saw Katie being escorted off property by the same two hulking security guards, who just looked ridiculous against Katie's angry struggling form. He waited another few minutes and snuck out of the Garrison through the tunnel he had found months ago. Keith carefully approached Katie, who was fuming sitting on the steps, presumably waiting for Colleen to pick her up.

"So. Did you find anything?" Keith asked, awkwardly taking the seat next to her on the steps.

"Yeah. I found they're big liars. Keith, the Orpheus is still on Kerberos. There was no crash. So what _happened._ " Katie slapped her hand on her leg in frustration.

"I…." Keith's voice trailed off, "I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. They're just. Gone."

"Thats complete and utter _crap._ You don't get to send me an 'I'm sorry' text the day before their deaths were announced and claim you know nothing." Katie yelled at him.

Keith stood up and looked down at her, "But I don't know anything. There was nothing to know. They just- went on the space walk and never reappeared. No one knows why and the Garrison isn't even willing to send a probe out their to find out why. I'm sorry Katie." Keith slowly ascended the stairs leaving Katie sitting there as he went back inside.

"You're such a _liar_ Keith! I hate you!" Was the last thing Keith heard before the door slid closed behind him.

Keith collapsed face first onto his bed when he got back to his dorm. He knew once they investigated how Katie had gotten in he would be in trouble. So Keith forced himself up back out of bed and started shoving his clothes back into Shiro's duffle again. He grabbed a few sets of Shiro's clothes as well and found a couple belt pouches that he could use as well. Keith left all of his uniforms in the drawers and then remembered the cards he left in his desk drawer and shoved the loved reminder of the fun he had with Shiro into one of his new belt pouches. Once he was packed to his satisfaction he took one last shower, shoving his toiletries in his bag when he got out, and changed into clothes for the next day and for the first time in ages slept in his boots. He anticipated a less than happy wake up call.

As expected the next morning he awoke to knocking at the door. Keith shoved his arms through his jacket sleeves and dragged his duffle next to the door. He took a deep breath and opened the door, outside it was Iverson, two security guards, and surprisingly the medical tech from quarantine. Keith felt his breath catch at the sight of the tech, and suddenly the Garrison's interest in his blood seemed a lot more pressing of a problem again.

Iverson started, "Cadet, due to several repeated infractions, such as skipping classes, yelling at a superior, and illegal entry into restricted areas, as well as footage of you helping a persona non grata enter a restricted area, you are hereby being expelled from the Garrison. You've officially gone too far, and it pains me to do this but you broke the rules and an example must be made. Security, escort him off the property." Iverson shook his head sadly, "You would have been great Cadet, if only you could have followed the rules as well as your former golden boy."

Keith saw red at the reference to Shiro, and before he had time to consider the action, he balled his gloved hand into a fist and punched Iverson straight across the jaw.

There was a strange silence after that, the red clearing from Keith's gaze. He took a steadying breath and grabbed the duffle bag, the two security guards grabbing his arms to prevent him from punching anyone else. Iverson glared down at him with his one good eye, "Add assaulting a superior officer to that list. I'm assuming you three can handle him, I can't stand the sight of him."

"Of course, sir. Come along." The guard on Keith's left side started dragging him forward. Iverson staggered down the hall in the opposite direction as the medical tech led Keith and his captors along.

Keith noticed quickly that they weren't heading towards any of the exits, but back into the depths of the restricted areas and panicked, "Where are you taking me. Iverson said off the property. This is not-"

"Silence, please. Continued resistance will only cause you damage. Did you know cadet, that your blood contains antibodies not native to this planet?" The tech asked, her voice light like she was discussing the weather and not functions of Keith's body. She looked back at Keith and saw his surprised face, "Oh, well. You are an orphan, so I suppose you wouldn't know. That is why we kept you hear on Earth. And this series of events seems like a perfect time to study your blood more. No one will even notice you're gone. Not after that last fight with your friend."

Keith felt like someone punched him in the gut. He had to get out of there right fucking now. He didn't want to get wherever they were going, a deep unsettling feeling in his chest told him that if he got there, he wouldn't be coming back out. As he passed a hall that looked familiar, the strange warmth that he had been feeling told him it was time to make him move. The strange warmth was far less scary than the vague possibility of being dissected or worse, so Keith twisted in the guards hold. He slammed his filled duffle into one's face, and kicked the other in the knee and took off down the hall. The warmth growled in a pleased manner and Keith took off rushing down the halls.

Keith slammed into a few people as he ran, ignoring the calls of the security guards chasing him. He reached an intersection that seemed familiar, the handle of the duffle cutting into his hand as he paused for a moment, remembering something Shiro had said, _patience yields focus_ and he took a second to figure out where he was. If he took a right here he would be back at Yasmin's hangar. Yasmin's hangar. The prototype! Keith darted forward and around the corner, bursting into the hangar. It was dark since no one was in there working, so Keith took a second to grab the keys, and the goggles Yasmin had given him during the earlier testing. Keith hurriedly wrote a note apologizing, and telling Hunk to text him if they needed it back sometime later.

Keith pulled the goggles on, tied a bandana he found draped on one of the lights over his mouth and opened the garage door to the outside. With a length of twine Keith tied the duffle to the back of the prototype and jumped on. He took a steadying breath, fired up the engine, and gunned it out into the desert surrounding the Garrison. The adrenaline rush of letting the prototype go full power filled Keith with a feeling of freedom. The wind tugged at his hair, the sand blew in his face, the sun was beating down overhead, the distant sound of vehicles in pursuit. He had no clue where he was going, or what he was going to do, but for the moment, he was free. He only wished Shiro was there to see him fly free for the first time.


End file.
